


Ten Thousand Ships

by crossingwinter



Series: Nymeria [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: F/F, F/M, Pre-Canon, in which I spent way too much time with my copy of TWOIAF, off-screen underage sexual activity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-06
Updated: 2015-12-06
Packaged: 2018-05-05 07:01:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Underage
Chapters: 5
Words: 41,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5365799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crossingwinter/pseuds/crossingwinter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Singers sang of her ten thousand, of her loves, of how bright her star shone, of how hot her ships burned.  But Nymeria's song began long before she set foot in Dorne.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Ny Sar

X

When Nymeria was ten years old, she almost drowned. 

She was playing in the Rhoyne, feeling the way the water flowed between her fingers, just the way that Horan had told her to.  If you found the flow of the water, the true flow—not the current, the current was easy, but the way the water curled together, wrapped around itself and was one and ten thousand all in one—then you could bend the water to your will. You had to truly understand the Mother Rhoyne to command her waters, and so you must learn.  You must play in the water.

And Nymeria did. Every day, she played in the Rhoyne, listening to the sounds of younger children splashing along the banks of the water, watching the reflections of the waves against the pale stone archways that crisscrossed the river and brought eastern and western Ny Sar together. 

She was watching, and listening, and feeling the water move through her fingers, around her legs, between the soft hair that grew on her limbs, trying to feel it all and only one droplet at once, and a fishing boat knocked her under the water. She had been so intent on the water that she hadn’t noticed it until it was too late.

It was a large boat—one that sailed up and down the Mother Rhoyne between the sister cities, carrying indigo and gold up from Sar Hoy to trade in Ny Sar for her turquoise jewelry and the pottery made from the white clay that could be found within ten miles on either side of the river.  Nymeria saw stars in her eyes, and swallowed a mouthful of the Mother Rhoyne. She was a strong swimmer, but when the rudder hit her in the arm, she let out a cry and coughed, and gasped and inhaled.

 _I must not drown_ , she thought.  _My mother will die_.

Her mother would never say it.  Her mother was the Princess Meria of Ny Sar, and her mother did not show sadness for she could not, not while her people feared the dragons in the south.  But her mother would die.  Her mother hadn’t been the same since her father had died, but had hid all that behind the mask of Princess Meria—that was what Elia had said. So Nymeria prayed. _Mother Rhoyne, do not let me drown_.

When Nymeria next breathed, she was lying on the eastern shore of the city, and Elia was crouched over her, pressing her breastbone and muttering under her breath. “You stupid girl, did you not see the boat?”  But she didn’t sound angry. She sounded scared. Nymeria felt water on her lips and chin and she was coughing.  She knew she did not have to speak.  She knew that. But Elia was sad. Her braid was mussed and wet, and her dress was damp.  She must have dove into the water fully clothed to drag Nymeria up.  Nymeria saw people watching from a distance.

“I’m sorry,” Nymeria managed to say when she finished coughing. 

“You’re supposed to feel the river, not breathe it,” snapped Elia, before wrapping her arms around Nymeria.  “What would I have told your mother if you’d drowned?”  Nymeria chewed her lip.  “Don’t chew your lip,” Elia said.  “A princess does not chew her lip.” 

They sat in the sunshine for a while.  Nymeria saw the people begin drift away.  _They must have come to see what was going on_ , she thought. She wondered why none of them had come to help Elia.

There was no breeze today, and the sun warmed her skin.  Periodically, Nymeria let out a cough.  Elia went and found her dress and dropped it over Nymeria’s head and she struggled into it while sitting.

“Did you feel the Mother, at least?” Elia asked.

“Nearly,” Nymeria grumbled. “If that stupid boat hadn’t come along, I would have.”  She was not sure if she would have, but she couldn’t tell Elia that.  She could tell Elia many things—anything, really. But she didn’t want Elia to know that she of all her friends had yet to feel the power of the Mother Rhoyne.

Elia snorted. She was calmer now that Nymeria was very much not drowned. 

“You’ll get there,” Elia said, reaching down and ruffling her hair.  “It’s not easy.  If it were easy, _anyone_ would do it.”

“It _looks_ easy,” Nymeria grumbled.

“It’s supposed to. It’s like the myrmidons. They make fighting with a sword look easy.  But is it?”

Nymeria remembered the first time she’d picked up a sword.  Her hands had been rubbed raw with blisters and she’d been covered in bruises for a week.  But the myrmidons who drilled in the city, and who marched her walls, made it look almost like dancing. Fighting with a sword was easier than water magic, though.   Everyone said so. She wanted not to believe it, but she had yet to feel the Rhoyne.  She wondered if Princess Meria was disappointed in her. 

Elia sighed. “Just because things look easy doesn’t mean they _are_ , little sister. I’d have thought your mother had taught you that?”  She held out both her hands, and Nymeria took them, letting Elia pull her to her feet.

“She does,” Nymeria said. “Everything’s more difficult than it looks.  Being a Princess is an important duty, and one must make it look effortless, while putting it before everything else that you do.”

Elia nodded, approvingly. “Making things look easy is hard.”

“I’ve noticed,” Nymeria grumbled, glaring at the river.  Elia laughed and wrapped an arm around her shoulder and they walked back up the banks to the eastern river road.

*

“You nearly drowned?” Princess Meria’s voice was not light, nor was it heavy.  It was even. Which meant Nymeria had angered her.

“I didn’t mean to,” she said, hastening to explain.  “The boat came—out of nowhere, mother and—”

“You didn’t see it coming?”

Nymeria bit her lip. She loved her mother—truly she did. But her mother was not a warm woman. Elia was far warmer, though Elia was her father’s daughter and not her mother’s.  With Elia, at least, you knew whether it was anger or sadness.

“I did not,” she said at last.  Princess Meria had taught her long before that it was worse not to accept responsibility for something that was your fault than to be blamed for it.  There was no honor in lies, and she was to be a Princess besides. One day, she would be responsible for the lives of everyone in the city of Ny Sar. 

Princess Meria watched her evenly. 

“You must be careful,” she said at last.  “I cannot afford to lose you.”

And that was it. Nymeria bowed her way from her mother’s chambers and she hurried down the hallway, breaking out into a run when she rounded the corner that would take her to Elia’s chambers. She knocked on her sister’s door twice before it was thrown open and she saw Elia standing there, her hair hanging unbound and her tunic on askance.

“Everything all right?” Elia asked breathlessly.

“Yes,” Nymeria said, but Elia frowned as if she didn’t believe her.

“Are you sure?” Elia asked, kneeling down so that she was eye to eye with her little sister. Nymeria heard a cough behind her, and she looked over Elia’s shoulder.

“Why is Yandar hiding behind a curtain?” she asked.

Yandar was one of the young myrmidons who guarded the palace.  His father was Ar Noysh and his mother mother was from Ghoyan Drohe and they’d met in the middle in Ny Sar.  He poked his head out from behind Elia’s curtain, smiling sheepishly at Nymeria. “Don’t tell your mother,” he said.

Nymeria frowned. She wasn’t supposed to lie. Princess Meria always knew when she did. She looked back at Elia, who was watching her closely.

“Was Princess Meria angry with you?”

“I think so,” Nymeria said sadly.

“She was just scared to have lost you.  I was too,” Elia said, drawing Nymeria into her arms. 

Nymeria let herself sink into her sister for a moment, but she smelled more like Yandar than like Elia, and she shook herself.  “Yes, but you at least said as much.  Princess Meria never does.”  And as she said it, she wished her mother did.

Elia sighed.

“Your mother has much on her mind,” Elia said.

“I know,” Nymeria whined. She wished she didn’t whine. She knew that Princess Meria had a lot on her mind.  Her mother had the dragons to consider, and the sister cities, and everyone in Ny Sar. But all the same, she wished sometimes that her mother could put down the mantle of Princess Meria and just be mother, the way that Elia was always sister.

XI

“Nym! Nym!”  She heard Serra calling for her somewhere behind her. Serra was constantly trying to tell Nymeria what to do. Nymeria didn’t call back.  Nymeria was watching.

It wasn’t often that Nymeria was able to sneak out of her mother’s palace.  She’d been protected, ever since she was very young. She was her mother’s sole heir, the Princess of Ny Sar, and should anything happen to her, the five houses would make things difficult for her mother.  Nymeria knew all this.  And when she’d been very young, she’d contented herself to only leaving the palace with her mother, her mother’s guards, her teachers, or Elia.

But not today.

Today, Nymeria had decided it was time to see the city, and she’d dragged Serra and Ysil with her. Serra was the daughter of the Family of Dronye, one of the oldest blood in the city.  She kept her hair in shells and always seemed to have a snotty expression, even when she was smiling. Ysil was a merchant’s son with an easy smile.  His father sold perfumes that were so famous they were renowned even in the Old Town of Westeros and the shadow city of Asshai.  His mother was noble, and like Nymeria’s mother, she had married for love, but Ysil’s blood was not so old as either Nymeria’s or Serra’s.

Ysil had come willingly—excitedly, even.  He didn’t leave her mother’s manse much, either, and he had been raised on the western shore of Ny Sar, near the feathermarkets and the manse of the Bar Soyne. But Serra was nervous. Serra didn’t like breaking rules, and Nymeria sneaking out of her mother’s palace was definitely breaking a rule.

“Nym!” Nymeria heard Serra call again, and she even heard Ysil’s added “Nymeria!” now, but she didn’t make a sound, even though she knew it would calm them.

Nymeria’s eyes were locked under an overhang from the back of a riverwoman’s house. The riverwoman was shaking a skinny little girl, who was crying.

“I told you not to come back here!” the riverwoman was shouting.  “I’ve got nothing for you.”

“Then where do I go?” the girl sobbed, and the riverwoman slapped her.

“Not my problem,” she said. She shoved her back, and the girl stumbled down onto the ground and let out another cry.  The riverwoman slammed the door shut. 

Nymeria watched her as she rubbed her eyes, then her elbows.  They were bleeding, and there were scrapes on her knees as well. The girl turned to look over her shoulder.  She didn’t see Nymeria, or at least, Nymeria didn’t think she saw her. 

Nymeria had thought there was no one else in the alleyway, but she was wrong.  A little boy, no more than four, clutching a puppy to his chest, came towards her.  His face was dirty, except for the tearstreaks.

“What do we do now?” Nymeria heard the boy mumble. 

The girl got to her feet and brushed herself off.  Her jaw was set, but Nymeria saw body trembling, as though she were trying to hold back her tears.

“We’ll find something,” the girl said.

“Nym!”

“Nymeria!”

They weren’t far, Serra and Ysil. They were close enough that Nymeria could hear them shout, at least.  Serra was loud—louder than anyone Nymeria knew, but Ysil was less so, especially while his voice was oddly raspy as it grew deeper and deeper.

They only ever called her Nymeria when no one else was around—not even Elia. Otherwise, she was Princess. Always Princess. _A Princess tends to her people_.  That’s what her mother said.  Princess Meria always tended to her people, and Princess Nymeria would do the same. She did not ever want to let her mother down, though she was still glad that her friends saw her as more than just her title.

Nymeria stepped out of the shadows.  “I’ll help you,” she said, and the girl started then stepped in front of the boy with his puppy.

“Who’re you?” the girl said, and she didn’t sound close to tears anymore.  She sounded wary—harsh, even.

“Nymeria!” she heard Ysil calling.

“I’m Princess Nymeria.”

“You’re not. You’re lying,” said the girl.

No one had ever called Nymeria a liar before.  She wasn’t a liar. At least, not about important things. She lied plenty to keep Ysil out of trouble when he went to practice with his pike after dark, or when Serra didn’t get to her basket weaving because she’d gotten lost in the current of the Mother Rhoyne.  Serra only ever broke rules for the Mother Rhoyne.  Serra wanted to be the greatest water witch the Rhoyne had ever known.

“I’m not,” Nymeria said. “But if you don’t believe me, come with me.”

“We don’t have anything for you to rob,” the girl snapped, her eyes narrowed.  It gave Nymeria pause.  No one ever narrowed their eyes at her, and even if they did—it was a smart point to make now that she thought about it.   Though one that also could be a lie.

“I don’t need to rob you. I have plenty already,” Nymeria said, a little peeved. She did not like people being smarter than her. She took a step closer to the girl, who took a step back, her foot landing on the boy’s.

“Ow!” he shouted, and the puppy began to bark. 

The barking attracted attention, and the riverwoman appeared in the window and shouted, “I said get away!”

The girl looked at the riverwoman then grabbed the boy’s hand and ran down the alleyway, brushing past Nymeria.

“Who was that?” Nymeria asked.  Her legs were longer than the girl’s, and so she kept up with her easily.

“No one,” the girl said.

“And you call me a liar,” Nymeria retorted.

The girl glared at her. “Our mother worked for her,” the girl said.  “And our mother is dead. She says snot-nosed children keep men away.”

They had reached the Shell Road, and they all paused.  “I’m sorry about your mother,” Nymeria said.  “How long has she been dead?”

The girl’s face crumpled and without even thinking, Nymeria reached out and wrapped her arms around the girl.  “It will be all right,” she said.  “I’ll help you. I promise.”

“Nym!” She felt Serra’s hands on her arms. “We’ve been _looking_ for you.  Where have you been?  Who’s this?”

“Friends,” Nymeria said, stepping back.  The girl was rubbing her nose. 

“Friends?” Ysil had arrived too, and was looking down at them over his big hooked nose. “Friends named what?”

“Saria,” the girl said. “And Gerris.”  She patted her brother on the head.

*

If Princess Meria was displeased that Nymeria had brought home Saria and Gerris, it did not show on her face.

“I can’t find places for every street urchin you bring home, so best not make a habit of it,” Princess Meria said gently, stroking Nymeria’s hair.  Nymeria relished her mother’s touch.  “But these two—these two we can help.”

Nymeria smiled at her mother, and her mother smiled back.

 XII

Meria of Ny Sar was a small woman, and Nymeria didn’t look much like her.  She looked like Elia, tall for her age and slim like a pike. Her mother was shorter, and rounder, but at times, you couldn’t tell.

Indeed, it was something Nymeria often forgot—that her mother was shorter than her ever since she was eleven and shot up the way that Elia had.  “She seems taller than even Garin the Grand,” Nymeria whispered to Elia from the archways to the side of her mother’s high seat.  By rights, Nymeria should be standing to her left, a place of protection, carrying a silver shield hewn to look like a tortoise shell. But one did not stand shielded before a visiting Prince, not unless you wished to insult him, so Nymeria stood off to the side with Elia.

“She’s greater than Garin the Grand,” Yandar said.  Nymeria was not so tall as Yandar—at least, not yet.  No one was as tall as Yandar, with his broad shoulders and long horse-tail hair. His eyes were on Garin the Grand, who was speaking of ties of friendship as old as the Mother Rhoyne.

“She’s not greater than Garin the Grand,” Elia muttered, and Yandar elbowed her. “She’s good.  But you can’t say _better_. You don’t _know_ Garin the Grand.”

Yandar rolled his eyes. “He came to her,” he pointed out.

“So? Sometimes you go places. That doesn’t make the person you’re visiting better than you,” Elia said. Nymeria rolled her eyes and looked back at her mother.

Princess Meria was now inclining her head to Garin the Grand’s son, a man of nearly twenty years of age, who was bowing to her, sweeping his arm out grandly.  It was bulging with muscle, and Nymeria saw Serra across the hall staring at it.  It was an impressive set of muscle.  Nymeria had to admit that.  Her own muscles would never be so large, though she was not weak.  She was sure that Serra would be gushing about how handsome Garin the younger was when they dined that night.  Nymeria couldn’t get passed his pug nose that made his face look scrunched.

“Nymeria,” hissed Elia. Nymeria started. Her mother was looking at her, and Elia gave her a push, and she did her best not to look jarred as she strode across the hall and bowed before Garin the Grand and Garin the younger. She should have been paying attention to her mother, not to Serra’s gaze. 

“My daughter,” Princess Meria said.  “Nymeria.”

“As lovely as her mother,” said Garin the Grand.  Nymeria didn’t feel it.  She felt oddly tall. She was taller than both Garins, and stood near a foot taller than her mother already, and she was only twelve. Horan said she was like to keep growing for another year.  Sometimes, Nymeria feared she would never stop growing.  She looked down at both men and heard herself say, “A great pleasure to meat such grand Garins.”

The hall chuckled, and a smile spread across the face of Garin the Grand, though not Garin the younger, and she felt her mother curl her arm around Nymeria’s elbow.

“I am sure you will find your stay both pleasurable and inspiring,” her mother said.

“As am I,” said Garin the Grand, and with that, the formal audience ended, and Princess Meria led Nymeria from the hall.

“Keep an eye on the younger Garin,” her mother told her, “should he be of interest to you.”

“Why should he be of interest to me?” Nymeria asked.  He’d had a pug nose, and hadn’t smiled at her once.  Her mother raised her eyebrows.  “I’m too young to think of marriage!” Nymeria yelped.  She was only twelve, and had only recently had her first blood. Her mother hadn’t married until she was nearly thirty, after all.  Though that might have been for loving a man married to another, even if no one spoke of it in such terms.  Nymeria had thought that perhaps she too would marry for love, but as her mother watched her closely, she cringed.  Perhaps it was a stupid thing to have thought.  Her mother had done that, but Nymeria was not Princess Meria.  Of course Princess Meria would have expected something else of her.

“Yes,” her mother agreed. “But all the same, he may be of interest to you.”

“He seemed stuffy,” said Nymeria. 

“So did your father,” Princess Meria said, her voice quiet and Nymeria looked down at her mother. Her mother only rarely spoke of her father, and when she did it was only ever sad.  Nymeria could not remember him.  He’d been tall, was all she knew.  And Elia loved him, and remembered him playing with her in the Mother Rhoyne, but even Elia did not speak of him frequently. It was as if he were some ghost that haunted them both, and who haunted Nymeria as well if only because she would constantly wonder if he would have liked her, if he would have been proud of her.

Nymeria frowned, and her mother squeezed her arm.  “He may not appeal to you,” she said.  “But do not judge a man by a first impression.  It does neither of you justice.”

Garin the Younger was, as it turned out, stuffy.  He was also annoying.  He only ever spoke of battle tactics, and the swollen size of Chroyane’s armies. “We’ll swat the dragon lords on the nose,” he said boastfully over dinner.

“So long as they don’t actually bring their dragons,” Nymeria said. 

He gave her a look as though she were only a child.  _Just because I’m younger than you doesn’t mean I’m stupider_ , she thought.  _Anyone can tell a dragon is dangerous_.

“The dragonlords don’t bring their dragons far from the Fourteen Flames,” he said witheringly.

“Yet,” Nymeria appended.

Garin raised his eyebrows. “You think they’ll change their tactics?”

“Wouldn’t you if you lost?” she demanded.  Maybe he’d never played Mother May I in the river.  Elia and Serra and Salom and Ysil were all very good, and sometimes you had to change your strategy just to win, even if you’d won all the previous rounds.

He glared at her. “Chroyane does not lose,” he said simply.  “They do not call my father Garin the Grand for nothing.”

Nymeria knew better than to rise to that bait, though.  She would not be so stupid as to insinuate anything lesser of Garin the Grand while he was in her mother’s palace.  To do so would be a great insult.  So she glared at Garin the Younger and decided that he had less wits than her, for all he was older even than Elia. 

She looked around the hall, wishing that she could sit with Elia.  Elia, at least, would be easy to talk to. But Elia was sitting with Yandar and two of Yandar’ friends—Morgan and Chrovan—laughing and playing with her turquoise and lapis necklace.  She looked happy—happier than Nymeria, and every now and then, she would rest her head on Yandar’ shoulder and smile up at him. 

Nymeria wondered what would happen if she laughed and rested her head on Garin’s shoulder. The image of his expression almost made her giggle and she hid her smile behind a sip of elderberry wine.

*

Nymeria watched her mother closely.  Princess Meria sat straight-backed, her hands resting on the arms of her seat as she listened to Prince Garin speak.  Her expression was pleasant enough, but her eyes were shrewd, and Nymeria had the sense that her mother was reading into Prince Garin’s very soul.

Nymeria shifted her gaze to Prince Garin, wondering what her mother saw there. He had a confidence to him, but behind that confidence, what was there? 

So she watched, and listened, and tried not to glow too much with pride when her mother would make a comment that would cause Prince Garin’s mask of confidence to flicker. _He does not know her as well as she knows him_ , Nymeria thought. _She has a better read on him than he has of her.  Does he think her weak?_

She glanced at her mother. Princess Meria was short, and warm enough to this foreign Prince, but he’d be a fool to think there wasn’t force to her.  _There must be force to me too, one day_ , Nymeria thought, and she straightened her back in her seat, her head rising taller now than anyone at the table’s. Perhaps she was not yet as strong as her mother—perhaps she never would be.  She still had so much to learn.

 

XIII

Nymeria looked at her mother’s maps, studying them carefully.  The Rhoyne sliced through the land, but was no thicker than a thread compared to the vast earth around it.  It was nothing like the sea.  Even the so-called Narrow Sea was hundreds of times the width of the Rhoyne. Nymeria almost couldn’t believe it.

The Rhoyne was wide—over a mile in many places, and closer to two towards Chroyane.   What must the sea be? Nymeria almost dreaded it.

“Nymeria?” She blinked, and looked up at her mother.  Princess Meria’s smile was gentle, though her eyes were stern.

“We cleave to the river,” Nymeria said.  “The Mother will protect us.”

“And if the dragons burn it?”

“The dragon flame couldn’t dry the river, mother,” Nymeria said.  Everyone knew that.  Besides, the dragonlords of Valyria had shown little interest in the cities on the Rhoyne. The Mother’s people were safe.

“Dragons can burn cities,” Princess Meria said calmly.  “Ghis was salted and her people enslaved, and Sar Mell survived her sacking only barely.”

Nymeria bit her lip. “But if we do not cleave to the river, what becomes of us?”

Princess Meria smiled sadly.  “That is the question.”

Nymeria frowned. Her mother had grown gloomier of late. She maintained a correspondence with Garin the Grand, though often his letters seemed to leave her more anxious than calm.  It was not the sort of thing that others might have noticed, for Princess Meria’s face was a smooth mask. Ny Sar thrived under her rule, and she was well loved, and she served her people tirelessly—and so she ensured they never saw the subtleties in her expression.  But Nymeria could—a tightness around the mouth, lines around her eyes that meant worry.  Nymeria did not wish to add to her worry, and she felt herself swell with determination. She would make her mother proud, be the heir her mother would have wanted from her. 

She looked at her mother closely, and saw her mother’s gaze go distant.  She tilted her head slightly and Nymeria knew she was worrying on something far away, and only a fool would have wondered what on. She hesitated for only a moment, before knowing that there was no reason to fear asking the question.

“Do you fear the dragonlords, mother?” Nymeria asked. 

Princess Meria closed her eyes and breathed deeply for a moment.  When she opened them again, she looked lost.  “A wise leader fears that which could destroy her,” Princess Meria said.  “A fool thinks they can fight a dragon.”

Nymeria frowned. “They can be slain, though. Horan said that if you quench the flame within their bellies they shrivel and die.”

Princess Meria was shaking her head.  “Our water wizards believe that.  Perhaps it is true. But do they expect a dragon not to fight them back?  They are fearsome creatures.”

“Have you ever seen one?” Nymeria asked with bated breath.  There was something exciting about dragons.  They were vicious creatures, to be sure, and feasted upon the flesh of man, but when they appeared in stories, it was always incredible. Truly incredible.

Princess Meria shook her head.  “They have never come so far north in their wars.  I have not seen them.  Nor do I wish to,” she said. “Should I see one, it will be the death of me.”

“Even if a dragonlord comes to hold audience, as Prince Garin did?”

“Especially then. There are worse things in life than never drawing the attention of dragons.”

 

XIV

“Where are you going?” Nymeria’s hand shot out and grabbed Gerris’s arm.  He squirmed for a second, then turned to her, grinning, and up ahead, his dog Veron turned and whined, wondering what had cut him short. He wore the shelled jerkin of one of palace’s pages, and his hair had been cut short to his head so that it was little more than a black fuzz.

“I’m training today,” he said happily.  Nymeria felt comprehension dawn across her face.

“You’re to be a myrmidon?”

Gerris nodded.

“I’m to pick out a pike and a sword.”  He looked excited. Nymeria crouched down and looked him in the eyes.

“You’ll be a great hero,” she promised him.  “There’ll be legends about you, Gerris of Watersedge.”

Gerris scrunched up his face.  “I need a better name than _that_ ,” he said, rolling his eyes.

“Train hard. And if you need ointment for your blisters, find me later.  I still have some from when I began training with a blade.”  She patted her sword at her hip.  It was more for show than for anything else.  More often of late, her lessons were not with Horan and his water magic, or with Mell and her blades, but with her mother.  And though she trained every day, she knew that she would never match her friends in skill.  Serra’s skill with the currents of the Rhyone was already far greater than anything that Nymeria could hope to attain, and Ysil was faster with a blade than anyone she’d ever seen.  He would rise high, she knew. Part of her was jealous of their skill. “ _They have less responsibility_ ,” her mother had said when she’d complained of it once.  “ _One day, you will lead your people.  You must know that leading a battle and swinging a sword are not one and the same_.  _And the former is far harder, though the latter may seem more prized at times.”_

Gerris nodded, then hurried off excitedly.  He was growing. Gerris’s dog Veron was already fully grown, but it wouldn’t be long before Gerris wouldn’t be a little boy anymore. _He’s already not little_ , Nymeria thought sadly.  _He’s to be a myrmidon_. She didn’t know why the thought made her sad.  It shouldn’t. He would make a good young man—strong, and brave and quick thinking like Saria.  But she was fond of the little boy and his wide smiles. She wondered, vaguely, if Elia hadn’t felt sad that she, too, had grown past her childhood.

Nymeria shook herself, then went off in the direction that Gerris and Veron had come from and before long came upon Saria, who was bending into a fountain and scrubbing.

Once, Nymeria might have splashed her, or even shoved her into the water because it always led to a good game, but she didn’t today.  Instead, she sat on the edge of the fountain and watched Saria.

The girl was small for her age—in the same way that Gerris was big for his. Her hands were rough from scrubbing. She always seemed to be scrubbing. Nymeria had once asked if she wouldn’t rather do something else, sure that she could help find Saria a different task to occupy her days, but Saria had shaken her head.  “I get to be on my own when I scrub the fountains,” she said. So Nymeria had let it be. Once, she’d thought that the girl should be her handmaid.  That was what she’d proposed to her mother when she’d brought her back triumphantly from the city.  But that hadn’t happened in the end.  Princess Meria had not allowed it, for Saria was too lowborn and it would offend the Five Families if a street rat was chosen over one of their fine blood.

“Gerris is to be a myrmidon,” Nymeria said at last, and Saria looked up, and brushed a loose strand of hair from her face.

“He is,” she said. “The captain said he was worth the study.”  She smiled. “He’ll be a great warrior. Fearsome.”

Nymeria nodded. “And you?” she asked. “Don’t you want to learn to fight? Or to learn the water magics?”

“And who’s to say I’m not teaching myself?” Saria said, putting her hands on her hips, which, far from making her look older and wiser made her look more like a little girl than before.  She hadn’t grown into her woman’s body yet, and Nymeria grinned at her.

“Are you?”

“Not to fight,” Saria admitted.  “At least, not beyond smacking Gerris to make sure he makes his bed.  But water magic…” her voice trailed away.  She dipped her fingers into the fountain and closed her eyes. Nymeria held her breath, watching. Everyone knew you had to touch the Mother Rhoyne to work her magic.  It was why there were not water wizards in Valyria, or across the narrow sea in the disputed riverlands of the Kingdoms of Westeros. Only the Mother Rhoyne held magic, and even if this fountain drew her water from the Mother…

Water hit Nymeria full in the face and she let out a yell.  Saria was laughing though, and splashing her again.

“I’m the greatest water wizard of them all!” she sang, dancing away from Nymeria’s splashes. “Greater than any wizard. You don’t _need_ magic to fight with water.”  She let out a squeal as Nymeria flung some water at her, and before long, both girls were completely soaked and breathless with laughter.

 

XV

Elia painted her face, lining her lips with blue dots and wrapping her neck in a turquoise choker that had been a gift from Princess Meria. 

She garbed herself in blue, the color of the Mother Rhoyne, and Nymeria helped her tie her hair so that it would fall in waves down her back.  When she stood, she looked like the river.  She took Nymeria’s hand, and squeezed it.

“Are you ready?” Nymeria asked her excitedly.  Elia nodded.

She kept Nymeria’s hand in hers as they walked down into the courtyard together, and an honor guard of ten of her father’s household myrmidons came to stand in a circle around them as they walked down to the banks of the Rhoyne.  Nymeria looked around for a glimpse of her mother, but suspected she would already be by the river. 

When they reached the banks of the Rhoyne, they saw Yandar in his grey-green garb. His eyes were light as he watched them approach, and Nymeria kissed her sister on the cheek and whispered, “don’t get hit by a boat.”  Elia giggled, a blush creeping across her face.  She turned away from Nymeria and stepped out from the honor guard and took Yandar’ hand.  Together, they stepped into the river, walking slowly and steadily until they were both neck deep in the water, their hair and clothes billowing out around them. Then they turned and faced one another.

“Mother Rhoyne,” Nymeria heard her sister proclaim.  “Bless this man for I take him within me, as you take your Turtle King.”

“Turtle King,” Yandar responded loudly.  “Bless this woman, for she is my home as the Mother Rhoyne is yours.” 

Nymeria looked down the shore and saw Horan.  He was ankle deep in the river and he was waving his arms as though swimming and Nymeria saw the water around Elia and Yandar stand still.  They each raised their arms from the water, setting the water to ripple around them.  They took one another’s hands, weaving their fingers together, then bent to kiss.

There was a sigh from the gathered crowd, and Nymeria felt a hand on the small of her back. She turned to see her mother standing next to her.  She was watching Elia and Yandar, but her eyes were far away.

Nymeria had never seen that look on her mother’s face—some strange combination of wistful and bittersweet. _She is thinking of my father_ , Nymeria thought with a jolt. She looked back at Yandar and Elia, trying to imagine instead her father—tall like a pike—and her mother glowing up with him as though the rest of the world was not there to see them. Their marriage had been one for love. Her father’s blood was worthy of a Princess of the Rhoyne and how lucky her mother must have felt to have had the smart choice in a husband be her love as well.  _I should know better than to hope for the same_ , Nymeria sighed to herself.  She was a Princess, with a duty was to her people, and she doubted that she would have such luck as her mother.  The best she could hope, she supposed, was that she would have a husband who would like her well enough, one who would be a good companion and a better father to what children he gave her.  A thought for later.

The festivities lasted well into the night.  Candles floated in every fountain in her mother’s palace and the music of xylophones and kettle drums filled the halls.  Nymeria danced—first with Serra and Ysil, then with Elia, and even with Yandar, though never for long.  The newlyweds hardly seemed to notice the world around them when they danced, their eyes were so full of one another.  Nymeria smiled to watch them, but she also felt her heart constrict.  _I will never find someone to look at me that way_ , she thought.  She _knew_.  She was a Princess, the heir to Ny Sar.  Yandar came from a good house, and Elia did as well, but they were equals.  _I have no equal save Garin the snot and the rest so far away_.

Perhaps she would be like her mother, alone until a man she loved became a widower. _Being a ruler is lonely business_ , her mother had once said. Nymeria hadn’t wanted to believe her. She loved her friends too well, but had noticed her mother seemed close to no one but her. _And father_ , Nymeria thought. 

She did her best to shrug it away, of course.  Tonight was the celebration Elia’s wedding, and soon enough, she was sure, she would have little nieces and nephews to love and teach.  So she danced, feeling the way her heart thudded in her chest, and trying not to imagine dancing with someone the way that Elia was dancing with Yandar, her eyes as bright as the sun.


	2. Ten Thousand Ships

XVI

2,000

It was the farthest from home that Nymeria had ever been, and it was beautiful. Perhaps not so beautiful as Ny Sar and all her fountains and laughter, but still beautiful. Stone arched over the roads, carved with the rippling patterns of the Mother Rhoyne, and the stones under her feet as she reached the road were like tortoise shells.

Chroyane. The Festival City.

Nymeria had always wondered what it was like.  And now she knew.

She wore her mother’s pendant at her throat and would speak with the Princess’ voice. She was, today, Princess Nymeria of Ny Sar, with the full responsibility of that office.  It was a little exciting, in truth, though she would never admit to that—not while her mother was ill.  The Mother Rhoyne frowned upon those who sought to rise above their station. It was something that Serra constantly hissed at Saria when she found Saria too familiar with Nymeria.

 _So why does she not frown upon the dragons?_ Nymeria wondered. How many wars now? Turtle Wars, Fisherman’s Wars, Salt Wars, wars where her sister cities fought and lost to the dragons who planted their seeds to the north and to the south.  _And Garin would have us end it_.

Garin the Younger had taken his father’s seat last year, and when Nymeria entered his hall, she noted that, saving a beard that he had grown, he looked just as he had when she’d been twelve, pug nosed and all.

She waited four days for the rest of them to arrive, Princess Sargenel of Ar Noy, a woman of about her mother’s age; Prince Mellmer of Sar Mell, a dashing man in his forties with no hair; and Prince Drusan of Ghoyan Drohe.  And when they did, they gathered in Prince Garin’s war chamber around a table of a flattened tortoise shell.

“We must throw the dragons from our back,” Garin said by way of opening.  “And we must do it as one.  We shall all be slaves unless we join together to end this threat.”

“I’d rather thought you might say that,” said Princess Sargenel, a smile playing at her lips, at the same time that Prince Drusan said, “What else would bring us all here?”

Prince Garin inclined his head.  “What happened at Sar Hoy cannot go unpunished,” he said.  “The city destroyed, her people sold to slavery, her earth salted that she might never know another harvest. This is a fate that awaits us all. If we cleave to the river, the Mother Rhoyne will protect us and we shall only know victory against their dragons. Fire cannot burn the water away.”

Princess Sargenel made a noise of approval.

“I have twenty thousand river ships,” said Prince Mellmar.  “Though I think that perhaps Volantis might notice if I were to sail them up here to you.  Our best hope is to surprise the dragons.

Nymeria stared at him—at all of them.  _Fire burns_ , she thought.  _Dragon flame will destroy your ships_. _A wise leader fears that which would destroy her._ She remembered her mother’s voice.  Nymeria had been so sure then that cleaving to the river was what would keep her people safe then.  Why then now was she not sure?   _What happens if we do not cleave to the river?_

“This is a war we cannot hope to win,” she heard herself saying.  All of them stared at her, and Nymeria suddenly found her mouth very dry. “I should like to. To keep our people and our cities safe. To show those who would make us submit that we are neither cowards nor weak adversaries.  But our ships are not enough to send the dragons back to Valyria.”

Their expressions were unconvinced, and Nymeria wondered for a moment if perhaps she should have softened her words.  But no—no, if she had she would not be speaking with Princess Meria’s voice. Princess Meria would be assertive in this, and so too must Nymeria.  Besides—she was right, wasn’t she?  She was sure she was right.

Prince Mellmer reached out and patted Nymeria’s arm.  “You are young, sweet Princess.  And you have known no bloodshed.  Blood must fall. Sometimes one must sacrifice one’s own blood.”

They were all still staring at her, and Princess Sargenel gave her a small smile. Even if none of the rest of them were smiling at her, it was bolstering.

“But—” Nymeria began, but Prince Garin spoke over her.

“You are only a young girl, and know little of war and leadership,” he said.  “I know more of both.  Believe me, Princess.  Our dance with the dragons will be so great that there will be songs of our glory for thousands of years to come.”

 

4,500

Nymeria woke before dawn. She did this every day, so it troubled her little.  She stretched the stiffness from her muscles and breathed in the air wondering what the day would bring. There was a chill this morning—the cutting chill that meant it rained the night before.  _Good. It shall mean the fires of Selhorys won’t burn as long._

Garin wouldn’t like that. Garin had wanted the city razed and burned, a lesson to Valyria—the Rhoynar were gathering and fighting back. But Nymeria thought his taste for grandeur would be his undoing.  _They won’t see the smoke through the rain and mist, and Valysar won’t know we’re coming.  We will stand a chance, so long as they don’t know we are coming._ He really was a horse’s ass sometimes.  He wanted to be known as Garin the Great, greater even than his father.  But the way he went about it…. _Perhaps I will never be as great as Princess Meria,_ she thought, _but I’ll manage it better than he’s managing_ this.

Surprise had been on their side at Selhorys.  That was why the battle had been easy.  Easy.

Nymeria shuddered to think of it.

Perhaps Prince Mellmer was right—she was young, and had no taste for blood. But it wasn’t the scent of blood that had kept her awake that night, so much as the cries and clangs.

Had her mother slept ill after battle?  Had her father?

Nymeria dressed herself and stepped out into the camp.  To the east, across the Mother Rhoyne, she saw pale purple hanging low in the sky, growing warmer by the second.  She had always like the sight of the rising sun, the way it slowly washed over her and reminded her that the day was beginning anew. 

She walked to the river and kicked off her sandals, stepping over reeds and brambles to dip her feet into the Mother Royne, and closed her eyes.  The river was softer here, steadier.  She was lazy in her wideness, but not so lazy as to be weak. The Mother Rhoyne was never weak.   _Nor are her people_ , she heard in Garin’s voice as he had stood on the decks of his great war galley as his myrmidons cheered for Selhorys’ downfall.

 _You know nothing of how strong they can be_ , she thought bitterly, thinking of Saria and of little Gerris.  She wondered if Prince Garin knew anything at all of the resilience of his people, or if he only saw their glory in blood and fire.

“How far will we march today, little sister?” Nymeria smiled.  Yandar had taken to calling her that ever since he had married Elia. Never when she was commanding, of course—he had more sense than that.  But when there was only the Mother Rhoyne to hear them, it was nice to be reminded that for all she was a Princess and a warrior she was a little sister as well. It made her feel safe, somehow.

“Far, I’m sure,” she said, turning to look south.  She could not see any hint of Valysar.  That would make the march a distant one.  The city, she’d heard, had tall towers, visible for miles and miles.

“Good to keep our legs useful before a fight,” Yandar said dryly.  She rolled her eyes, but didn’t say a word.  It would not be proper to sigh about how Garin had deemed Ny Sar’s ships less suitable for battle than the others, to be left at Chroyane, then at Selhorys, should they be needed later.  Besides, Yandar knew of that particular frustration already. “It will be well,” he had said, patting her on the shoulder, and she’d vaguely wondered if he, like Elia, was allowed to rub her head in comfort, “It simply means they will be fully stocked and ready to take us home when we are victorious.”

 _If we are victorious_ , she hadn’t dared say. Instead she’d said, “To take you home to Elia and your sweet babe.”

He’d grinned and winked, and Nymeria had elbowed him.  If she was his little sister now, he was her big brother, and one was allowed to elbow one’s big brother, even if he was also one of her battle commanders. Perhaps especially. And this big brother had always been in need of an elbowing.  It had not been apparent until after they’d been wed, but Elia had been pregnant already. Princess Meria had kept a smooth expression when she’d learned, for what difference did it make? Elia and Yandar had planned to wed for a good year before the wedding, and Elia had only laughed about it privately, happy and excited.  The little girl Lhoral had been as beautiful as a babe could be, and Yandar and Elia had glowed with pride presenting her to the Mother Rhoyne. 

And Yandar had left Elia with another babe in the belly before he’d sailed, though her body was barely recovered from Lhoral’s birth.  _She’ll have twenty children before her body gives way,_ Nymeria had thought in surprise.  She wondered what it would be like to hold a babe in her arms, and smile up at the man who had given her and only see love in his eyes.

 _Not for me_ , she reminded herself. It didn’t seem fair. She tried to push the thought from her mind, but found it hard.  It had been easier when she’d been a girl, but now she was woman, and a Princess—if only carrying her mother’s title for her—and marriage was a Princess’ responsibility, wasn’t it?  Especially as her mother’s sole heir. Why could she not have her mother’s luck?

“Nymeria?”

“Hm?” Yandar had said something, but she’d been too lost in her own thoughts to hear him. 

“I said Valysar and Volon Therys are on our side of the river.”

“I know,” she’d said.   She’d thought about that last night while she had tossed and turned in her bed.  It wouldn’t be fire arrows and war machines launching stones this time—her myrmidons would go into the thick of battle in both cities. Men seasoned for battle—some who had fought in the Second Spice Wars even.  And yet to her their faces all were little Gerris’s.  It was stupid.  She knew it was stupid.  They were men, not boys. _But they’ll die in droves_ , she thought.  _At my command_.

 _At Garin’s command_. This voice was her mother’s, correcting her.

_At mine.  I lead. Their corpses shall lie at my door._

Yandar was patting her on the shoulder.  “All battles unsettle. But there’s nothing like the first.” He said it gently. She looked up at him. “It’s normal, I promise.”

“Is that supposed to make it better?” she asked him.  It came out sharper than he intended, but he did not flinch, or even look abashed.

“Yes,” he said simply. “When there’s no good to it no matter how you look at it, it is supposed to make it better.”  He kicked off his own sandals and came to stand in the Rhoyne next to her.  “Think of it like foot sores from marching.”  Nymeria rolled her eyes. He rode a horse, as did she. She’d heard her men complain of foot sores, but had never experienced them herself.  She never would.  “You know, at the end of a day, that you’ll be marching again tomorrow. And in all likelihood, your sores will be no better than they are now.  If anything, they’ll be a good deal worse.  Do you dip them in water to sooth the ache, knowing they’ll be bad again, or do you force yourself to suffer on, and know no respite?”

Nymeria chanced a smile up at him, and he smiled down at her completely, his goodness lighting up his face like a lamp.  _Elia is lucky to have him_ , she thought.

“You’re a fine commander, Nymeria,” he told her.  “And a decent enough soldier though I hope to the Mother Rhoyne and her beloved that you never face anyone in single combat.  You’re good—but you’re not that good.  And you’ve got much to learn about the ways of war. You’ll learn.” His smile hardened as he looked down the river towards Valysar.  “Mother, but you’ll learn.”

 

6,102

Across the river, Nymeria heard the roar of dragons.  She saw them swooping in the sky—huge, as large as her mother’s palace, sending flames from their maws and resisting the spears sent into the sky to kill them. _Sar Mell will burn_ , she thought sadly.  It was already beginning to.  But Nymeria could not worry about that—not just yet. The dragons and war elephants on the other side of the river were not her concern, however loud their trumpeting and roars might be.  They were for the Ar Noy to destroy.  And Garin’s fleet, should they reach the river.  They did not seem to wish to.  They were to cut off the supplies of the city.

Nymeria’s worry were the seventy thousand armored Valyrians before her, facing her fifty thousand myrmidons.  _So long as the dragons are far_ , she prayed. She prayed, and she feared. _A wise ruler fears that which could destroy her.  The dragons will destroy us all_. 

“Fear has no place on the battlefield,” Yandar had whispered to her when she’d first seen the dragonlords descend from the sky.  “Only bravery, Princess.”  _Princess.  Not little sister._

_Leave the dragonlords to Chroya and Garin. By the time they reach us, they’ll be exhausted anyway._

Nymeria closed her eyes and flares her nose and for a moment was able to brush away the thunders of battle. 

She raised her sword and her archers prepared.

“Rain fire on them,” Nymeria shouted and as one, her archers sent their arrows toward the approaching flank.  The Valyrians knelt, set up their shields and many of the arrows glanced off to land on the ground. Nymeria smiled, watching as the arrows quickly caught to the dried grass.  It was not the usual way.  She knew, somewhere down the way, that one of the other armies would have witches throwing the Mother’s water on the dragons and their war elephants, but the grasses were dry, and if the Valyrians fought with fire, that did not mean that they were prepared for it when it was used against them—especially not when they expected water witches and steam.

It had not rained for days—not since before Valysar.  Rain was for springtime, not for summer, and summer had come to the Rhoyne. _The Mother would see us victorious_ , she had thought with something almost like glee after Valysar.  Perhaps she was just a young girl.  Perhaps Prince Garin was right—all the might of the Rhoyne could throw the Valyrians into the sea. _All rivers lead to a sea_ , _after all_.

She watched as the Valyrians tried fruitlessly to stamp out the flames at their feet, and she raised her horn to her lips and blew it once, twice, three times. Her myrmidons howled into the night and ran forward, drawing blades and raising their tortoise shields and calling “Mother Rhyone!” and “Ny Sar!” and, sweetest of all, “Nymeria! Nymeria!   Nymeria!”

Nymeria kicked her horse forward, towards the Valyrians, toward Volon Therys, and behind her, she heard Yandar do the same. She heard the thundering of thousands of hooves behind her and knew that that was the sound of victory.

 

1,216

It felt good to be on a ship again, the gentle rock of the Mother Rhoyne to lull her to sleep each night.  Far from battle, far from soldiers, and war, and smug Garin’s glances whenever he saw her. _You see?  You are only a little girl, playing at Princess_.

It felt good to be on a ship again, but Nymeria wished she weren’t.  She wished desperately she weren’t.  She wished she were reveling in Sar Mell like the rest of them, preparing to lay siege to Volantis—cut the river from her and watch her shrivel up with only the poisonous salty water of the sea to sustain her. She could be dancing with her men, perhaps she’d find a captain to take to bed, to see what it was like even if she could not marry him—a strong man from Ar Noy, or one of Ghoyan Drohe’s fiercest captains who would surely not mind that Nymeria had never lain with a man. She wished she were waiting to push south again, not north.  Never north. Not like this.

_Your mother has passed, Princess.  We preserve her body to give to the waves upon your return.   You must return, as quickly as you can._

Horan’s voice from the river had never been so unwelcome.  Nymeria hid her tears, and left her armies to Yandar to command and sailed north with her ships from Valysar, what water wizards she brought with her churning the tide away that their ships would carry her faster.

 _A good ruler fears that which could destroy her. Did you fear death, mother? Should I?_ Her mother had never seemed to be afraid of death. She’d spoken of it as a fact, as much a part of life as birth or the river.  She’d never seemed nervous of her own end.  _She is with Father now. Perhaps that was why she did not fear it.  She had so little time with him…_

Nymeria kept her misery to herself as best she could, kept it to her cabin.  Let them not say she was a little girl, afraid of what to do now that her mother had died and she had no one to tell her what to do, though she felt it in her soul.  When she was on deck, she stayed near the prow of the ship, watching as Selhorys, then Chroyane, then Dagger Lake approached, then disappeared.  Spans of the river that had taken weeks and weeks to march disappeared in days.  

It didn’t seem so far—not when you were sailing it.  Perhaps because the Mother Rhoyne was always home.  _The only mother I have left_. Nymeria closed her eyes.

The wind over the river played at her lips.  It was cool. Too cool.  She opened her eyes again and saw Ghogoni, tied to the ship’s rail as he hung off her side, his hands in the water to collect the message.

“What news?” she asked him as he hoisted himself back up.  He looked horrified, shaken.  Home? Or Volantis?

“Princess,” he said, his voice dry, “The host was smashed at Volantis.”

“Smashed?”

“A hundred dragons. The Mother boiled, and the men fell back in retreat.”

“How many? How many died? Of Ny Sar?”

Ghogoni looked terrified. “All.”

Nymeria leaned against the railing, trembling.  How many thousands of men had she led south?  How many with little Gerris’s face, and their feet sore from marching. And Yandar—Mother— _And Elia carries his other child._

“And the rest?” she forced herself to ask.

“Only those on ships escaped—those ships that did not burn.  Sar Mell was sacked, and the Valryians captured Prince Garin and march on Chroyane with great haste.”

“To destroy his home before him.”  She knew it was true. It was something they would do. “The Ar Noy?  And Ghoyan Drohe?”

Ghogoni shook his head. “I heard nothing. It could mean they escaped.” He did not sound hopeful.

“And what if they do not stop at Chroyane?”  _What if they press north to Ny Sar and all my myrmidons are dead?_

“I…I do not know, Princess.”

 _I am scared, mother.  Guide me._ She felt like a little girl, more than ever she had when she’d been truly little.

But the river was silent, and she could not hear Princess Meria’s voice in her mind.  

 

XVII

She stood waist deep in the river, watching as the little boat burned, her smoke and sparks swirling in the wind while her ashes began to sink into the water. _Too much like Valysar_ , Nymeria thought sadly, but she didn’t say it. She simply watched as the boat that bore Princess Meria’s body burned. 

Elia stood behind her. Ysil and Serra nearby, and she was sure that Saria and Gerris had snuck down from the palace to be there as well, though they had no right to be there, as low as their birth was. They should be on the bridge, with the rest of the city, watching as Princess Meria’s body was given to the mother again.

When the boat fell apart completely, Nymeria knelt in the water.  It rose to her chin, just beneath her lips, and she ducked her head beneath the water, holding her breath, remembering vividly a time when she had nearly drowned. She’d been so small then, hadn’t she? How odd, to be so small. She never would be again.

When she raised her head above the water, she felt someone—Elia, probably, though perhaps Horan—place a circlet on her head. 

“Princess Nymeria of Ny Sar,” she heard Elia call, and the commons repeated the words so that it echoed a thousand times off the bridges that crossed the Rhoyne. Nymeria stood, standing as straight as she could, the tallest person by far of anyone near her. Her clothes stuck to her body, but she did not pluck them loose of her skin.  That would be undignified and she must be strong now—strong while her people feared.  Let them see her muscles, grown larger from fighting.  Let them see that she was more than just a little girl.

“I will keep you safe,” she promised them, her voice sounding thin and wavering. She cleared her throat. “I will keep you safe from the wrath of dragons.”  She knew she should say more.  Something—anything. But she couldn’t think of any words. She wondered what her mother would have said.

She turned back towards the shore and walked back up to the palace.  There were whispers around her, but no one spoke loudly, not even Serra and Ysil. Everyone was watching her closely.

Ordinarily, there would be some sort of feasting.  The Mother mourned the dead that the living might celebrate a new Princess, but Nymeria did not feel in the mood for feasts—not with so many dead, and Elia who shut herself away with Lhoral and wept over her swelling stomach.  And certainly not when she thought of what came next.

What did come next?

They had reached the palace, and Nymeria turned to look over her shoulder.  Elia was still there, Lhoral in her arms. Ysil and Serra stood behind her, and in the shadows, she thought she saw Saria. 

“Come with me,” she said to them, and she turned, tracing steps she’d taken hundreds of times towards her mother’s study. 

The room was dark, and Saria set herself to lighting the candles while the others stood about, their eyes on Nymeria.  She took a deep breath, and sat down in her mother’s chair.

“The Dragons will come for us,” Nymeria said to them, her voice hollow. 

“We’ll fight them,” Serra said at once.

“With what?” Ysil demanded. “We have so few soldiers remaining us—all our fighting men and women dead, and those men who were not trained but swelled our ranks gone too.  They’ll use us to pick their dragons’ teeth.”

“The Mother—”

“Did not save us at Volantis,” Ysil burst out, angry.  _Frightened_ , Nymeria thought.

“They won’t have a hundred dragons,” Serra said disdainfully.

“How do you know that?” Nymeria asked her quietly, and Serra flushed.

“I—” but she cut herself off.

“You don’t,” Nymeria said. “They’ve never come this far north before, but what’s to stop them?  We certainly can’t.  I can’t.”

She looked at Elia, sitting there with her baby in her arms.  She wanted Elia to tell her what to do, the way that Elia had when she was small, reminding her not to chew her lip or to straighten her hair. Elia had always known what to do, had always taken care of her.  But Elia looked as much like a lost little girl as Nymeria felt. 

But no. No, she mustn’t feel a little girl. Even if she didn’t know what to do, she knew that much.  To do so would be to lose the battle before it was won.  She must be like Princess Meria—dauntless, brave, knowing, else she would never be able to keep the promise she had just made.

 _What do I do, mother?_ She asked silently. But as on the ship, she heard no answer.

She leaned back in her chair and looked at her friends.  Ysil was watching her closely, his hand resting lazily on his sword. Serra was pursing her lips and looking at her hands.  And Saria…

Saria was watching her closely, with the look of someone who wasn’t sure if she was allowed to say what was on her mind.

“Speak,” Nymeria said, nodding her head at the girl.

“What will become of us if we don’t fight?” she asked.  It was a good question, Nymeria thought sadly.

“We’ll be killed. Or sold as slaves.”

Elia let out a strangled cry, her hands on her daughter going white at the knuckle.

“The Mother Rhoyne will help us,” Serra said obstinately, and Nymeria was glad to see Ysil roll his eyes.

 _The Mother Rhoyne can do no more for us than she has,_ Nymeria wanted to say, but before she opened her mouth to do so, she heard the question again— _What if we do not cleave to the river?_

She went still, her mind, her body, everything.  It was as though the whole world had frozen around her and for just a moment, everything was clear to her. 

Home should be a place of safety.  That was one thing that Nymeria knew.  She had known it since she was a little girl, asking her mother why guards were kept at the gates of the palace, asking why it was that her mother sent armies south to fight when there was no danger nearby.  Home should be a place of safety, where people could lead lives simply and well, without fear of losing all they had, losing their very selves to the whim of someone else. And a place that was not safe, a place where people could not thrive and exist in peace—well, that could not be home anymore. 

They could not stay in Ny Sar.  They could not stay along the Rhoyne.  Not if they could not defend her, and she would not defend them.

“We leave,” she blurted out.

“What?” Elia asked, sharply.

“We leave the Rhoyne,” Nymeria said.

“We can’t leave the Rhoyne,” Serra intoned, almost laughing in disbelief.

“It’s that or a life of slavery, and I don’t much want that for any of you, much less myself,” Nymeria said.  She looked at Ysil. He inclined his head. Then her gaze drifted to Saria.

Saria’s face was unreadable, but her eyes—her eyes were bright.

Nymeria stood, and she looked at Ysil.  “Tell what soldiers remain, what guards we have, to organize the evacuation of the city.” He bowed and left. She turned to Serra. “You’ll help prepare the ships and the witches for our trip down the Rhoyne.  We will need mists.”

“I don’t think this is a good idea,” Serra said.

 _I don’t much care_ , Nymeria thought bitterly. Instead, she did not reply. She looked at Saria. “Find Yslla and help her with the stocking of the ships.”  And Saria was gone. Serra got to her feet without a word and left as well.

At last, Nymeria turned to Elia.  Elia was sitting there, watching her sister.  She could not command Elia to do anything. 

“Do you think this is a bad idea as well?” She asked, trying not to sound like a little girl again.

Elia closed her eyes, considering.  “I don’t think there are good ideas right now, so this can’t be the worst of them,” Elia said at last.  “I think it’s also what your mother would have counseled.”

Nymeria felt her heart swell.

 

7,683

Nymeria’s eyes never left the Qhoyne.  _Come,_ she heard herself think.  _Please come.   You must know…_

“They might think it’s a trick.”  Serra was crouched near her, her feet and hands in the lake. 

“Why would they think I would trick them?”

“You might not, but the dragonlords would.  They will have heard of Chroyane.” 

Nymeria shivered.

The tales out of Chroyane were enough to make her more scared of what might befall them than what she’d witnessed while at war.  Death—despair, destruction, curses.  Garin’s great festival city…it had been so beautiful.

“We’ll need to go if they don’t come today,” Serra said, her voice clipped.  She still did not approve of this, but she knew better than to try and contradict Nymeria right now, while everyone was so scared. “The Ghoyan Droyhe will arrive by nightfall with all their ships.  If they don’t have enough water wizards, I won’t be able to make a mist big enough to hide us and them.”

Nymeria’s eyes flickered to her friend, then back to the Qhoyne.  Ar Noy was not so far.  She could send a schooner up the river to see if there were at least any signs of them.

But no.

She could lose no more ships—not yet.  Not such as they were.

She had no more than one thousand _real_ ships—the sort that were meant for the river or for war.  The rest were rafts and trade cogs and fishing boats. Thousands of them, full to the brim of whatever their owners could carry. 

They were not sea-faring ships.  None of them were. Not even her war galleys…she dreaded the thought of the Summer Sea.  She knew it could be stormy, especially as winter…no.  No she would not worry about that yet.  _A wise ruler fears that which could destroy her._ One storm on the Summer Sea could drown all of her people, but if the dragons found them sailing down the river, they would all be doomed.

 _Not all._ Though it would be as good as. How many would be slaughtered, and how many would be sent to the Fourteen Flames to toil in the hot earth, knowing only the lash and chain?  It was not a choice, in truth.  There was nothing left for them here, though her heart broke at the thought.

“Serra?”

“Princess?”

She wished Serra wouldn’t call her Princess.  Serra and Ysil—they were her friends.  To them she would always be the one who splashed them in the fountains, and who led them on wild goose chases through the city.  She laughed and shared her candied fruit with them.  They were nearly siblings, nearly Elia.

Elia wasn’t herself. She grieved.  Her face was ashen and her eyes distant, and Nymeria knew she tried to be helpful, but sometimes it was as though her sister were a ghost who stood at her side.  _I should grieve too—for my mother, and for Yandar, and for the soldiers I lost and the people I may be leading to their graves even now..._ She wondered if her mother had grieved when her father had died. Were princesses allowed to show grief? She could not remember. She’d been too young. She dared not show grief now. Not when they needed her strong, not when they were so afraid.  _I’m afraid too,_ she thought, and felt her throat constrict.  _Will no one be strong for me?_ No.  No, she had to be strong for herself, for all her people. She couldn’t let her fear win, not when so much depended on her being bold. 

“Princess?”

“When the Ghoyan Drohe arrive, we’ll prepare to sail at dawn. Make it known.”

“Yes, Princess.”

“Serra?”

“Yes?”

“When we leave, send the message up the Qhoyne. Make sure that the Ar Noy know we waited for them as long as we dared.”

Serra nodded and set to work, weaving the water into words, ready to send it as far as she could up the Rhoyne and the Qhoyne. She yawned when she was finished.

“To bed with you.”

“When you sleep, Princess.”  That made Nymeria smile.  That was her Serra, her friend, the one who cared about her, even if she did not like the idea of leaving home, even if commands grated at her.  Serra still cared for her, even if she didn’t like their predicament.

She was tempted to let Serra have her way, but Nymeria shook her head. “I will need you rested for the mists on the morrow.  Sleep, friend.”

Serra stood, and her hands were wrinkled from the Mother Rhoyne. She stepped onto the northern banks of the lake and looked about.  They were alone, save for a few guards, though ‘guards’ was hardly the word for them. They were boys. Small boys, boys whose voices had not yet broken, who stood shorter than Serra, who feared because their teachers and fathers were dead and gone and so now they must be men.

“Don’t stay awake too long.  You’ll want to be rested for the morrow as well,” Serra said. She gave Nymeria the briefest of hugs and Nymeria felt her lips twitch. 

“Just until the Ghoyan Drohe arrive.  I would speak with their leader.”

Serra bobbed her head and went off towards the ship and rest.

Nymeria turned her head east again, staring at the Qhoyne.

_Please come. Please.  You’ll die if you stay, or worse, you’ll live._

They could go up the Qhoyne, she supposed.  They could—as far up the Qhoyne as they could, then to the Darkwash until they were forced a foot at the Shivering Sea. But what good was that? The Great Cities of Qohor and Norvos and Lorath stood in their way to freedom, and Nymeria knew little of the land up there.  If they went north on the Rhoyne, there was Pentos and Andalos until they reached the Upper Rhoyne where starvation would await them on the salt flats.  Marching directly west would bring them to Myr, and Lys…At least to the south, they could cleave to the Rhoyne as long as they dared.

_And pray they did not block…_

She would have, were she in command of the Valyrian armies. But they did not know the river as the Rhoynar did.  They only knew fire and air.  That was their way.

When had the sun set?  She could not remember, so lost in her own swirling thought. 

“Nymeria?” she heard behind her, and spun. Saria was standing there, and little Gerris, who wore his tortoise armor and looked smaller than ever.

She smiled.  “What is it?”

“The first of the Ghoyan Drohe are here,” she said, gesturing behind her.  Nymeria peered to the west, but could see no signs of them.  There were too many of her own ships between.  But she believed Saria. 

“How many?”

“Three thousand boats.  No war ships.  Just rafts and cogs and schooners.  Women, children. Some water wizards, but they are old and feeble.”

“Enough to help with the mists?”

“I don’t know,” Saria said.  Nymeria reached over and clasped Saria’s shoulder.

“Thank you for bringing this news,” she said gently. “You should rest.”

 _“You_ should rest,” Saria said.

“Now you sound like Serra.”

Saria made a face.  Saria and Serra did not get on well.  Like oil and water, Ysil had once observed.  Perhaps it was because their names sounded too much alike.  “Put it aside,” Nymeria said, trying to sound the Princess. “Now is not a time for my friends to squabble.”

Saria’s face grew serious.  “Yes, Princess.”  Nymeria felt her head jerk, and Saria corrected herself.  “Nymeria.  Nym. Meria.  Whichever you’d prefer.”

Nymeria’s throat went dry.  “Not Meria,” she rasped.  She was not her mother.  Though she would try to be as strong as both mothers.  How could one be strong?  When one left home for who knows where, praying to evade death and chaos and slavery and undoing? She was afraid.

“Nymeria,” Saria said, and Nymeria brushed past her, patting little Gerris’s head as she went.  She walked west. The sky was brightest in the west, remnants of the sun’s setting, orange and purple lining the sky, as far as the eye could see.  People moved aside when they saw her, bowing and saying her name, asking her questions—“When do we leave?” “Are we turning back?”  “Have the dragonlords found us?” “Where are the Ar Noy?”

“Princess.”  She was sure she’d come to hate being called that. 

“Captain.”  Ysil stood before her and pressed a hand to his breastplate above his heart, then said,

“They are this way.”

Another five minutes and she was standing before an old man, bent over a stick, his beard whispy and white, his eyes blinded by cataracts.

“Princess Nymeria,” Ysil announced and those around the man—women, all of them women—bowed their heads.

“Princess?” the old man said, his voice tremulous.

“I am here,” she said gently, taking his hand.

“I am Drohe Nysar.”  _Nysar.  Not Ny Sar.  Just a name. A normal Rhoynish name._ It wrenched her heart none the less.

“Prince Noysar,” _Noysar. Another name.  Just a name._ “was my nephew and he burned in Volantis.”  She had not met Prince Noysar.  He had come late to Garin’s cause for he was newly crowned after his father Prince Drusan had fallen at Valysar.

“I am sorry for your loss,” she said, her throat thick.

“And I for yours.  Your mother was great, as was your city.  We passed through on our way here.”

“I had never been to Ghoyan Drohe,” she said, scrambling, “I had heard her…her hills were stunning.”

A wistful expression crossed Drohe Nysar’s face. “The Andals called them the Velvet Hills.  They were thus. Mossy and soft to the touch.” The expression faded.  “I pray the Valyrians leave her hills unburnt.”

“That is my wish as well,” she said. 

“We leave at dawn?”

“At dawn.”

“Chroya?”  Princes Chroya was the newly crowned Princess of Ar Noy, her mother’s second child. She was a sickly woman, to hear it said, and she had not been raised to be a princess as her elder brother had been raised to be a prince.  _And Drohe Nysar was not supposed to be his nephew’s heir._

Nymeria closed her eyes.  “No word of Chroya.”

Drohe Nysar nodded.

One of his women helped him back aboard a boat while another whispered to Nymeria, “His health fails.  He is old, and frail.  You must be strong. The Ghoyan Drohe will fear all once he is dead and will need a strong hand to follow.”

Nymeria nodded.  “I will be all I can,” she said, and the woman nodded.  She was tall, though not so tall as Nymeria, and her hair was bound in thick coils and held together with water rings.  _A water witch_ , Nymeria thought.  And, from the number of the rings, Nymeria could see that she was powerful.

“What is your name?” she asked the woman.

“I am Druselka, Princess,” the woman said.

Nymeria nodded, putting the name in her memory immediately.

“Will you be able to help summon mists?” she asked.

The woman smiled, and Nymeria could see from the smile that the question she had asked was an ignorant one, and she kicked herself. She should have known better than to assume such an evident master of the water magics might find mistmaking as difficult as Nymeria did.  _Mother always told me to know my capacities. And here I am, already forgetting._ She must not let herself continue to forget.  There was too much at stake.“Such will be easy,” Druselka said.

“Good.  Ease will help.”

“Princess.”  Druselka bowed, and Nymeria walked back to her ship, Ysil at her side, feeling weary. _Weary and we’ve barely left_ , she thought grimly. 

She was tempted to go and stand where she’d been before, where she’d be able to see the Qhoyne in the distance, but she didn’t.  She’d promised Serra and Saria she would rest, and she needed to rest.  Her bones ached with tired, and her eyes were drooping.

She walked headlong into Gerris.

“What are you doing?” Ysil asked, grabbing the boy’s arm. 

“Ships!” he said excitedly. “Ships from the Qhoyne. Hundreds of them.”

_The Ar Noy._

Nymeria almost cried with relief.  Instead, she laughed.

 

10,004

Nymeria stood on the deck of her foremost ship, holding onto a rope, not so much for balance, but because it gave her something to hold on to.  She was feeling fidgety.  Dagger Lake spread out before her, wide and open and behind her, when she looked…

Under any other circumstances, her heart would sing.  To see so many ships, so many of her people at her back…but they were fleeing. It made the song bitter in her heart. _What song will they sing of me?  What story will they tell?  Coward. Weak._ She did not want that.  What if she failed?

“Princess?” That word again. She turned and looked at Ysil, who was pointing to a rowboat.  She nodded and let go the rope, then climbed down the sides of the ship and settled in the rowboat, Ysil and Serra joining her.  Elia was feeling unwell, and had elected to stay behind. Ghoyan Drohe women shoved off and began rowing towards Drohe Nysar’s ship.  In the distance, she saw another rowboat making her way towards it.

The cabin in the aft of the ship was large, though not luxurious.  Drohe Nysar sat on the floor on a pile of cushions, wrapped in robes that made him look much larger than he was.  Nymeria inclined her head to him, before seating herself on a pile of pillows, Ysil and Serra behind her. 

“Chroya is coming?” Drohe Nysar asked Druselka, who stood at his back.

“Yes, my Prince,” Druselka said, her voice a purr, and Drohe Nysar patted her on the arm and turned back to Nymeria.  His eyes were full of cataracts, and his skin covered in liver spots.  She had not noticed how old he was in the dying light when she’d first met him, but now…

“My advisors,” Nymeria said, “Ysil—commander of my remaining soldiers, and Serra who is my voice in the Rhoyne.” Then, as an afterthought, she adds, “My sister Elia is unwell today, but will join us in the future, I hope.”

“Naturally,” said Drohe Nysar.  The door to the cabin opened, and Chroya stepped in.  She was alone.

She was very pretty, her hair curling in waves down her back, her nose slightly hooked, her skin smooth and her eyes the sort of eyes that seemed to express every emotion.

“Welcome,” Drohe Nysar said to her, and she settled on her cushions so that the three of them made a triangle.  “Well, let’s get started then.”

“Where are we going?” Chroya asked almost at once, looking between Nymeria and Drohe Nysar.

“Away,” Nymeria said. “We can determine the rest later.”

“Yes, but that doesn’t allow us to plan accordingly—how far we will be going, will our ships be able to sustain the travel.”

“That,” Drohe Nysar said, “Is rowing your boat while it’s still at anchor.”  Chroya cocked her head, looking at him. Nymeria frowned. He smiled and looked at them, not unkindly.  “You are both young. What do you know of the way that people can fight one another—even when they aren’t afraid.  Men like to be right—Rhoynar most of all. Each and every one of our people will have some idea of what should come next, and with two young princesses and one old and failing prince, any sign of weakness will cause them to turn on themselves.  This they must not do.”

Nymeria had not thought of that, and she could see from Chroya’s face that the other Princess had not either. 

“We must not let that happen,” Nymeria said at once.  “They must not turn on each other.”

“Oh, there’s little you will be able to do about that,” sighed Drohe Nysar, sounding if anything amused. “They’ll do it, no matter what. The best we can hope to do is to make sure they don’t turn on us.”

Nymeria bit her lip, then forced herself to stop, hearing Elia’s voice that it was unprincesslike. If they were weak leaders and their people were afraid, it would not be long before they would turn against the leaders who brought them so far from home.  She had not thought of that.  There was so much she had not thought of.  _I wasn’t ready, mother,_ she thought wildly.  But there was no time to dwell on that now.  She could not. It didn’t matter if she was or wasn’t ready—she _was_ the Princess, and she needed to think like one.

“We must be strong then,” she said, and Drohe Nysar nodded to her. 

“I am a weary old man. Well liked, if I guess correctly, but not strong to the eye.”  He looked between the two of them.  “You are both young and hale.”

“The Ghoyan Drohe won’t like that,” Nymeria said slowly.

“Only so long as the Ghoyan Drohe think that we do not listen to your council,” Chroya said. “They know you are old. They know we are young. Surely they will see reason?”

“We can hope,” Drohe Nysar said.  “We must work together, though.”  He coughed. “Like Garin’s armies.”

“Garin didn’t listen,” Nymeria said bitterly.  “If he had, then perhaps…” Perhaps what?  If he’d listened to her, what would they have done?  He would have seen cowardice in fleeing, just as he saw weakness in not fighting.  _And he was wrong_.  She would not let that be her undoing as it was his.

“Well, then we must listen better than he did,” Drohe Nysar said.  “It seems to me that you are listening now. I have hopes.”

“Well, we must make your hope real, or all this is for naught,” Nymeria said, leaning back into her cushions.  “Now, how to keep them organized until the danger has passed?”

*

It could not be the same city.  It could not be. Nymeria nearly wept.

Nearly, for she dared not shed a single tear, not ever, not before her people.  So she stared stony-faced at Chroyane, which had once crowned the Mother Rhoyne at her heart, spiraling stone arches and buildings on either side of the river, smashed and flooded and smoked while a mist heavier than the ones that had hidden her “fleet” seemed to ooze over her.

“Garin the Great, we called him,” said Chroya.  She had come to Nymeria’s ship the night before.  She wore her thick dark curls in a braid like Nymeria’s today, and there was an ashen quality to her skin that worried Serra.  But Chroya refused to be “coddled,” as she called it, even while Nymeria heard her coughs grow thicker the longer they stayed in the mist.

“Was he great?” Chroya asked.  “I never met him.”

“Pug-nosed,” Nymeria sighed.  “And he might have been.”

Chroya pointed overhead. There was a cage of gold, hanging above the river.  There were bones in the cage. 

“Crowning Chroyane,” Chroya said bitterly.

Nymeria stared at Garin’s skeleton, Garin’s grief.  His skin and eyes had been picked away by crows, leaving him looking more tormented than if he’d just been a corpse or a skeleton.  She could not imagine the pain of watching your city destroyed beneath you, powerless to prevent it, when you’d tried to save it from this fate.

His body could not even be given to the Mother Rhoyne. Who would take it down?  They could…

“What’s that?” Saria asked. She was standing down the rail from them, and Nymeria followed her pointed hand. 

It looked like a statue of a man kneeling down behind a shield, watching for danger. But she’d never seen a statue like that.  The carving was fine, to be sure, but the stone was cracked and bad.  No Chroyane artist would use such stone, nor put a carving in a Valyrian battle costume like that…

“It’s _breathing_ ,” Saria said, starting back, and Nymeria felt her eyes widen.

“Don’t let them in the river,” she said loudly.  “No one is to swim until we’ve cleared Chroyane.  Is that understood?” 

“What is it, Princess?” someone asked, but it was Chroya who spoke, not Nymeria.

“A curse,” she said. “Death.”

 

10,297

The river was rotting, and her water was bad, and Saria sent word to the others that they needed to boil their water, or catch the rain.  They could not drink it.  The Mother Rhoyne was poison. 

Twice, Serra and Elia had dipped their hands into the water, to find the current and move the bodies aside, but the Mother was too clogged, and she could not. 

Once, the slowness might have frightened Nymeria.  Once, she might have been afraid that the dragons would descend upon them, but they had not had trouble.  The summer mists rolled along the Rhoyne, and when the Mother’s water was in the air, those who knew her magic could spell the mist around them.  The dragons, if they flew, could not see them.  Sometimes, Nymeria dreamed she heard one of their shrieks, as she’d heard at Valysar.  But her fears were never actualized.  At least—not yet.

She stood at the prow, looking ahead.  Chroya stood to her left, and Elia behind her, and she knew, somewhere, that Ghoyan Drohe was looking south as well from his own ship.  _Volantis_.

Off in the distance, she could almost see the rising walls of the great city. 

Part of her raged silently. She wanted to burn it—they had enough ships to at least put up a good fight.  But most of her armies were destroyed, and most of her sailors were women and children and merchants. _Not an army_ , she thought sadly.  _All my people, but the warriors are only boys and girls_. She trained with them every day, helping what few myrmidons she had to train the new ones.  But she wasn’t stupid enough to think it would be enough to destroy Volantis. Or even to defend themselves from Volantis.

“How will we get by?” Elia whispered.

Nymeria chewed her lip for just a moment, thinking, then turned back towards her cabin. The others followed her. It was still a strange feeling. She was used to being followed, to people noting her every move, was even used to being the decider in her little group of friends, but she was unused to being at the head of so much. She wasn’t sure she liked it. She wished that Chroya did more, but Chroya was sick and did not have it in her to share the burden. And though she visited Drohe Nysar, she had learned quickly that his advice was always about how to keep the people happy, and never helping to guide her about what came next, and she’d almost stopped asking him.  She wondered if it mightn’t be a relief for him if she did.

She stared at her map, then ran her finger along the length of the wide blue line that was the Mother Rhoyne, stopping just short of where it met the Volaena.

“Oh,” she heard Saria whisper, but Elia’s voice rode over hers. 

“The Saroyne is narrow and dry.  The Valyrians dammed it.” Of course they had. They had wanted no one to ever live near where Sarhoy had stood ever again.  She thought of Chroyane, and the broken men of stone she’d seen there. She wondered if they’d burned Ny Sar yet.

“We’ll have to break the dams,” Nymeria said, calmly.

“They’d see us,” Elia pointed out.

“We’ll send ships ahead,” Serra said.

“We don’t have enough,” said Chroya.

“We’ll use the river,” Saria said.

“The river’s clogged, the Mother’s magic is weak,” Serra snapped.

Saria glared at her. “Water erodes. Or don’t you remember the fountains at home?”

Serra blinked at her, and Nymeria looked at her sharply.  “Speak.”

“So long as we send some ahead to shift some of the dams, the water will help us do the moving. Water flows where it will, unless stopped.  But if you move the stop…” her voice trailed away and she looked at them all, rolling her eyes, her hands on her hips.  “The Mother Rhoyne isn’t just magic.   Her strength comes from the sheer amount of water there _is_.” Nymeria bit back a smile. Saria had gotten more outspoken since they’d left home—perhaps because someone had to. Or perhaps she always had been and Nymeria had never noticed.

“You’ll go with the ships,” she said.  “You and Druselka and—”

“I’ll go,” said Chroya. “I’ll take some of my—” she coughed, and they waited, but her coughing did not stop.  She waved a hand in front of her face, her eyes watering, her cheeks red.

Nymeria nodded at her. “Go as fast as you can. There isn’t much time.”

They were nearly at the Saroyne, and if they passed it, they would need to prepare to face the Valyrians again, and Nymeria doubted they would be gentle.


	3. Waters

10,009

_What happens if we do not cleave to the river?_

_We die._

Over a hundred of her ships—if they could be called ships—had sunk in the first storm they’d encountered on the Summer Sea.  And that wasn’t counting the rafts, and trade cogs—smaller vessels that were made for the Mother Rhoyne’s current, but not the wild waves of the stormy sea.

“I’m amazed so many survived,” Elia said sadly.  She held Lhoral in her arms over the swell of her belly.  Nymeria swallowed and looked out over the waters. She did not want to think of the storm, of the way her belly had roiled, of how her heart had been in her throat. She remembered being young, and nearly drowning in the river and Elia had come to save her, pumping water from her chest and breathing life into her body.

There were too many drowned to breathe life back into now, and even if they could, their bodies had floated away, to be pecked at by birds and nibbled at by fish until they were nothing but bones again.  Seas do not clog the way the Mother Rhoyne did.  And Nymeria wasn’t sure which she preferred. 

“They strapped together when they saw the storm clouds,” Saria said.  She was leaning over the rail, her long braid pointing towards the sea like a rope.  “In some cases it helped.  For the rest…”

“Do we have a count?” she asked, looking at her.  Ever since Saria’s trick with the dam up on the Saroyne, the girl had become—not an advisor so much as a minister of sorts.  Nymeria would set her a task and she would do it, with surprising ease and speed. Serra did not like it, but Serra bit her tongue.

Saria shook her head.

“Not yet. The war ships are circling as best they can, but…it was easier on the Rhoyne.  Easier to keep track.  Most don’t know how to properly sail out here, and rowing is exhausting. They aren’t prepared for it.”

Nymeria frowned, and looked up at her ship’s sails.  They were heavy, and her ship’s captain, a woman named Mok, let them billow, giving her crew a rest after the storm. 

“When next we land, we’ll have to build better ships,” she said.  “Ships that can stand the seas.  Rafts and trade cogs and boats without sails…”

“Where will we go?” This question was Elia’s, and Nymeria was glad it came from her sister’s voice and no one else’s.  It had been an easy question to answer while they sailed down the Rhyone.

Nymeria did not know. _Away. Where the dragons can’t find us._ She felt a coward thinking it, but knew she mustn’t.  There was no cowardice in survival.

And she did not like not having an explicit answer, though, not knowing where she was even leading them. It made her feel a little girl all over again, though she was a woman now, and a princess.

She could not say she did not know.  She was not allowed to.

 _There is no time for indecision, and I must seem dauntless—even to Elia_.

She looked out over the ships, doing her best not to let herself remember how many more there had been only a few days before.  Far away, she could see Drohe Nysar’s ship, a bit battered, but still afloat. Then her eyes drifted to Chroya’s ship as well.  Chroya still seemed to fade into the background sometimes, always turning to Nymeria or to Drohe Nysar to choose what they must do next.  She was steady—that much was sure.  Her presence was endlessly calming for Nymeria.  But dauntless?  No.

 _I can be steady like her, though,_ Nymeria thought. _I must be steady like her.  Steady like Chroya and as dauntless as Princess Meria and I will be…_ she almost laughed.

She would be like the river.  Like the Mother Rhoyne itself.  No matter how weak and defeated her people were, no matter if bodies littered her heart and mind, enough to block her, she would push through, and one day people would thrive upon her banks again.  _Just not us_ , she thought sadly.  _We can never go back._

“South,” she said.

“South?” Serra asked.

“South,” she repeated. “To go east would be foolish, for there is Valyria herself.  I do not like the idea of being taken as slaves for venturing too near. To the west, there is Westeros, and then nothing.  This is known. The Lords of Westeros will not share their lands with us.”  She laughed. “They do not share their lands with each other.  And besides, we do not share land well.  If we did, then Volon Therys and Sar Mell would have become one city.”  She heard Elia hum in agreement, and took heart. Elia would not let her say anything foolish.  Elia had always been her protector, her guide.  “So south. The Basilisk Isles, or Naath, or the Summer Islands—mayhaps even Sothoryos.  We will find a place to live again.  We will find a new home.”

It sounded silly. Nymeria knew that. But it sounded dauntless, and that was what mattered.  And she could see it on the faces of her friends—with her mind made up, they believed her. _As much as men complain of following, they do not mind it,_ Princess Meria had once told her, _So long as they like their leader.  Earning their affection is important, but earning their trust moreso._

Serra cleared her throat and Nymeria looked at her, and felt her heart sink.  Serra’s face had slid into a contemplative expression, and whenever Serra’s face slid into a contemplative expression, Nymeria knew there would be argument.  It would never be easy, would it?

“That is well,” she said. “But Sothoryos is far, Nymeria. And we will sail a good long while before we reach even the closest of those places.  The Basilisk Isles will require that we skirt Valyria, and—”

“So the Summer Isles,” said Elia.

“Except the Summer Isles are ruled,” Serra said.  “We would be begging land from them, and perhaps we—”

“What choice do we have? There are no lands unoccupied, unless you’d like to see if we can settle in the wastes to the west.”

“The Basilisk Isles—or even the Stepstones—”

“We’ll skirt Valyria,” sighed Nymeria.  “We’ll sail as far south as we dare, then sail east.  The dragons don’t fly over open sea, and when they do fly over water, it is east to Ghiscar, or directly to Volantis.  When we’ve passed the peninsula, we’ll strike east.”  She pointed over the bow of the ship.

Saria cleared her throat this time, and Nymeria looked at her, waiting for the girl to tell her she’d missed something.  “That’s west you’re pointing.  The sun…”

Nymeria stared for a moment, then burst out laughing, letting her arm fall back to her side, and Saria grinned at her. 

“That seems to make sense,” Serra said, though she was frowning, clearly trying to bring the conversation back to what was to be done.

“You’re worried,” Elia observed.

Serra made a face. “Well…it’s hard not to be worried. Not while—”

“Princess!” Nymeria’s head jerked around and she saw Ysil, leaning off the prow of one of her schooners.  It was a fast ship, and a light one, and she’d seen it nearly sink during the storm. She pushed the thought from her mind, pushed the subsequent fear of how many more storms they would have to face, how many more ships she would lose sailing the open seas, because there was Ysil, hailing her from the prow, looking haggard but so very alive.  _Focus on the living. There’s naught left you can do for the dead._

“What’s the count?” she called to him. 

“We’ve lost two hundred ships, Princess,” he called.  The schooner was pulling even to her ship.  “And…” She did not like the look on his face.

“And?”

“Some have turned back. They fear the open water and hope to resettle elsewhere on the Mother Rhoyne.”

“No,” Nymeria whispered. Only slavery remained them where they came from.  “Who? How many?”

“Fifty merchant ships from Ar Noy, and ten from Ghoyan Drohe.”

Nymeria closed her eyes and breathed.  But she could not calm her heart—the scent of salt was too overpowering. 

“No one could stop them?” _Could Chroya not hold her people?_

Ysil shook his head. “We could try.  We could turn back as well to fetch them back…”

But that would require turning their whole fleet, and how many would think that it was cowardice that sent her back towards land, rather than those who had abandoned her. Ar Noy and Ghoyan Drohe. They were her people, but she was not their princess—not so long as Chroya and Drohe Nysar lived. Could it truly be her responsibility to go after them?  Did they think Chroya and Drohe Nysar weak?  Some small part of her was pleased that none of the Ny Sar had fled back to the Rhoyne.

“They made their choice,” she said.  Each word felt like a knife in her gut, knowing what fate awaited them, what fate she condemned them to in not following them and bringing them back.  “They are not my slaves that I can call back at will and punish for disobedience.  The chain awaits them, but I will not chain them to me.”

She turned to Saria, and saw Mok standing a little ways away, watching her with dark brown eyes.

“We sail south.   Then east.”

 

10,008

Nymeria could tire easily of open water.  She could happily never see it again.

She knew her people thought the same.  She could tell from their faces as they rowed. 

They did row. It was the easiest way to do it. They tied their rafts and barges to the larger schooners and let the schooners hold sail, but the smaller boats rowed.  She knew that it tired them, knew that the shoulders of her women ached as they did. Nymeria thought again of how many dead myrmidons, whose strength could have helped with the oars.

She heard the songs of prayers across the water, priestesses and water wizards who sought to find a drop of the Mother Rhoyne among the ever-stretching waves of the sea. If they found a drop of the Rhoyne, perhaps they would not need to row as much.  Perhaps their mother would carry them to a new home.

Nymeria did not hope that they would be successful.  At this point, she hoped only for the skies to be clear, for no storm to await them over the horizon.  She dreaded another storm.

Sometimes she would go to other ships, to confer with captains, or whoever wished to speak with her. She would wrap a rope firmly around her leg, grab it with her arm and swing between the ships, grabbing hold of some piece of rigging or other and then climbing down onto the deck. She liked the sensation of flying. Perhaps it was the feeling of wind in your face, wind rushing through your hair faster than any wind truly could that made the Valyrians take to the air.  So long as she did not look down, she was well.  She’d found out—much to her chagrin—that looking down when atop a mast almost made her faint. 

Drohe Nysar had been weak of body to begin with when they had first set sail, but the sea had only weakened him further.  More and more when Chroya and Nymeria met with him, he only nodded and listened, but did not say a word.  It made Nymeria nervous. She could see the faces of the Ghoyan Drohe, some angry, some afraid, most both, and all wondering what would happen should he pass. 

She knew meeting with him helped soothe the minds of the Ghoyan Drohe, so she and Chroya went to him several times a week.

“They fear, Drohe Nysar,” Nymeria said to him at last. 

“Who fear?” he asked her, his voice raspy. 

Druselka sat behind him, and she made a point of pouring water for him and mixing it with some honey that they had brought with them from the Rhoyne.  She held the drink to his lips and tilted it into his mouth. He sputtered slightly, but swallowed most of it. 

“The Ghoyan Drohe. They fear your age and infirmity.”

“Nymeria,” Chorya said in a low voice, but Drohe Nysar waved a hand.

“I know,” he wheezed. “I will try to be of greater help.”

But he didn’t—or rather, he couldn’t.  He barely left his cabin, and it fell to Nymeria and Chroya to try and ease the minds of the Ghoyan Drohe.

Nymeria walked among them when she could.  She would visit their ships, meet with their captains and the women who were so like Serra in some ways—proud, haughty, frightened of what they had lost. She did what little she could to ease their minds, but found that there was little she _could_ do in the end.

“Your presence helps,” Druselka told her simply.  “To see that someone cares for their hurts.”

“Does it really?” Nymeria asked her, desperate to know it was true.  It had become clear to her that this witch was well trusted among the Ghoyan Drohe.

“As much as it can,” the witch said simply.  Then she sighed. “The Mother has cursed us.  The Mother’s voice is silent so far from her shores.”

 _She is pleased with me even while being displeased with me. I cannot win,_ Nymeria thought sadly. She knew that all of the water witches who had come with them were displeased.  Serra had told her that the seawater held no magic, not even a whisper of it, that there was no current to be found.  And though some of them did confer, swinging between ships as Nymeria did, it seemed that their conferences were able to discover no new magics.

Saria rolled her eyes at this.  “Of course not,” she’d hissed at Nymeria, when Serra had told her this.  “Or else we’d have heard of other water magics in the world.”

Unfortunately, Saria had heard her.  “How do you know that there is no other water magics in the world?” she’d snapped, clearly stung.

“Because.”

“That’s not an answer,” Serra had growled.  “You have read nothing on the subject, have heard no stories.  What would you know?”

But Nymeria knew better than to let that argument develop, and she changed the subject quickly before it had truly gotten started.

There was no peace of mind. That she had noticed quickly, even when they were on the Rhoyne, but now she noticed it faster. Everyone was distressed—frightened. The Rhoynar were not made for the open sea, and yet here they were, unsure if another storm would destroy them all. Elia mourned, her friends did their best to help her but could not keep their own fears from their voices, Drohe Nysar was ill, and Druselka thought them cursed.  At least, she thought, Chroya understood all of this. At least she was not completely alone in bearing the weight.

*

It grew worse. For the span of ten days, there was no wind.  No wind, and arms that were too tired to row, and since she and Drohe Nysar and Chroya had sworn not to make slaves of their people, there were hours where the ships just floated, tying themselves together so as not to drift apart.

Nymeria went to the Ghoyan Drohe with Chroya.  They sat for a while with Drohe Nysar and then went between his ships to speak with his people.

“He is old,” whispered one woman.  “Old and weak. I don’t want my boy thinking he is what it is to be strong,” she said, resting her hand on her boy’s head. The boy in question was only five, and looked up at Nymeria, his eyes wide.  _He has probably never seen anyone so tall as me_ , Nymeria thought.  She’d yet to meet someone her height, and stood much taller than any of the Ghoyan Drohe.  Perhaps she was imagining it—they seemed shorter than her Ny Sar. 

“He loves you well,” she said to the woman.  “He wishes he were thirty years younger, but his body fails his heart.  His heart is still with you, though, have no fears of that.”

“I don’t fear his heart,” shrugged the woman.  “His heart was always better than his nephew’s.”

Nymeria smiled, though she knew it didn’t reach her eyes.  _Discontent, even before they set sail_. She was glad once again that her mother had been well loved.  She heard no whispers of discontent from her own ranks.

 _That doesn’t mean they aren’t there_ , she thought, and she made a note to have Saria listen to what she could.  Saria more than Serra or Ysil would be able to learn if her people were discontent, for she was lowborn.  _Or better yet, Gerris. People speak freely in front of children._

“What do you fear?” Nymeria asked her, and the woman’s eyes flickered and Nymeria saw her thinking quickly. 

“The rest. The others,” she said at last. “Them that’ll swoop in when he dies and try and take his place.”  She jerked her head over to one of the ships.  “The ones who notice that the Ar Noy are not well led either.”

Nymeria followed her gaze. It went to a little ship with rippling blue ribbons tied to its mast.

“What are those ribbons?” Nymeria asked.

“Them,” the woman said, and Nymeria shivered.

*

“We should have known this would happen,” Nymeria said.  “Of course they would see he is old and think him weak.”

“But he is well loved,” Chroya said, quietly.

“Being loved and being seen as strong enough to lead your people are different things. I do not think they mean him harm, but they do not think him able,” Nymeria said sadly.  And as she said the words, her heart sank, for she knew that he _wasn’t_ able. He was old enough to know that this was coming, but he was not strong enough to prevent it.

“What do we do?” Ysil asked.  He was standing by the door, watching Nymeria and Chroya.  Elia was sitting on a pile of cushions, feeding Lhoral and listening intently. Saria and Serra were each standing by the window, looking out over the sea, mirrors to one another, though pretending the other did not exist. 

Nymeria frowned.

“I do not think there is anything we can do, yet,” Elia said quietly, and Nymeria glanced at her.

“Go on,” she said.

“They are not of Ny Sar or of Ar Noy.  To do something about it would be as…unfitting as whatever it is that they themselves are planning. Moreso, if anything. Ny Sar has never had a right to Ghoyan Drohe.  Are we of Valyria that we claim dominance over what is not ours?”

“This is different,” Nymeria said quickly, trying not to sound like she was whining.

“I do not see how.”

“This is for the good of us all,” Nymeria said.  “They do something to Drohe Nysar’s rule, then—”

“Do you think they will move against us?” Elia said quietly.  “Perhaps you will have less a weight to bear, little sister. You carry so much as it is.”

“Are you suggesting we stand by and let—” Nymeria began hotly before cutting herself short. Elia looked so tired. So tired, and if Elia thought that she, Nymeria, looked tired…

“He has brought them so far,” she said at last. 

“And I doubt they are ungrateful.  They know what fate awaited them.  Give it time. It may not be the ill you think it is.”

“And if it is?” Chroya asked, and there was nervousness in her voice.  “What if they see that they can unseat Drohe Nysar and that spreads to the Ar Noy and the Ny Sar?  What if we all end up…”

“We won’t,” Nymeria said firmly.

“The Ny Sar are loyal,” Saria said, shrugging.  “Those who are displeased know there is no alternative.  They mourn their present as much as their past, but they have hope still.”

 _And the Ar Noy?_ Nymeria thought, looking at Chroya. Chroya was not looking at any of them, and it was in that moment that Nymeria realized that she had no counselors of her own—no advisors or friends.  _And how many ships turned back?_

She reached out and took Chroya’s hand and squeezed it.  Her hand was warm in Nymeria’s.  “All will be well,” she swore, and Chroya gave her a sad smile.

“I wish I could be so convinced,” she said. 

“You must make it so,” Nymeria said.  “Your strength will be theirs.”

“It’s not so easy,” Chroya murmured.

“I will show you, then.”

*

She found Chroya in the aft cabin of her own ship, half-awake and staring out her window.

“Any sight of land?” Chroya asked her, and Nymeria settled on the rug at her feet.

“Not today. Ysil says we are still a good way off, that if we’re lucky it’s less than a month’s travel.”

“I do not like the idea of the Basilisk Isles,” Chroya said again.  She said it every time.  Nymeria was glad that she did.  Everyone seemed to think, or perhaps made themselves think, that things would be easy, but Nymeria didn’t dare let herself think that.  She was glad Chroya didn’t either.

Nymeria leaned back, resting her head against the wall of the cabin, and closed her eyes. “I think it will do us all good just to see land,” she said.  “To remember the feel of the ground beneath our feet.  Even if it’s only stopping for supplies and water…”

“And to rebuild some ships,” Chroya added, and Nymeria smiled. 

“And maybe build some new ones.  Do you have shipwrights with you?”

Chroya nodded. “A few.  I don’t know how fast they could work.  Or what sort of lumber they’ll have on the Isles when we get there. That’s of greater concern—do we have any woodcutters with us?”  Nymeria frowned.  There had been no forests near Ny Sar.  They’d had artisans, craftsmen who carved wood into furniture and bowls and baskets and the like, but woodcutters? 

“I guess we are all woodcutters now,” she said uneasily.

Chroya made a hum that matched Nymeria’s mood, and Nymeria looked up at her.  Nymeria knew all too well that this was the Chroya everyone saw—pallid, sickly, frail—but she wished desperately that they knew just how wise she was, how steady.  Perhaps she was hesitant before her people, but they should know that she was constantly thinking of how best to serve her people, how best to account for their needs. Sometimes, Nymeria thought she was the only one who saw that, for it seemed that even Ysil and Serra grew tired of her.

Chroya reached out her hand and cupped Nymeria’s chin and for a moment, Nymeria’s heart skipped a beat. She had seen Yandar touch Elia’s face this way, right before he’d kissed her, but no one had ever touched Nymeria like that.

“All will be well,” Chroya said, gently.  Nymeria felt her lips part. They were very dry. She licked them. She was unused to someone other than Elia telling her that all would be well.  She was unused to Chroya being the one to say it, rather than Nymeria to Chroya.  It made her heart swell, and it was that, more than anything else, that made her say it.

“I sometimes fear it won’t be.” She might once have told Elia, but Elia’s heart still mourned Yandar, and Nymeria could not lay more trouble at her feet. 

Chroya smiled. “My mother used to tell me that one must pass through the shadow to reach the light.  The world is a dark place, but that does not mean that good isn’t possible.  The sun always rises in the end.”

Nymeria swallowed and nodded.  Chroya was very close.

“My mother used to tell me to be wary of all danger—that danger comes when you least expect it.”

“Do you not expect it?”

“I…I do expect it.”

“Then you are not in danger of that.”  Chroya’s smile was gentle.

Nymeria wondered how old she was.  She seemed suddenly so much older, and Nymeria felt only a little girl.  But she’d never been so lonely as a little girl—not with Serra and Ysil, not with Elia, and Saria and little Gerris and all the rest she’d loved. But now…she dared not show them her fear.  She dared show no one her fear, no one except Chroya who, in the dark, seemed more ill than ever.

Nymeria wanted to say something.  She didn’t know what she wanted to say, though.  She kept getting distracted by Chroya’s hand, which was still under her chin.

She felt her lips twitch—not in a smile.  In something else, and she closed her eyes.  When she opened them again, Chroya was still watching her.  Her face seemed even closer than it had before, and Nymeria wasn’t a little girl any longer—she was a Princess, a commander, she shouldn’t be afraid. 

But she was—of something wholly different than she’d been afraid of when she came into this cabin. _The sun always rises in the end_ , she thought, and steeled herself, and kissed Chroya.

*

Days dragged on, dragged into one another, and Nymeria could see the way her people deflated. Her people rowed hard, and she saw their skin darken to a deep brown beneath the endless, hot sun.  She knew her own skin darkened as well.  Though she had no mirror, she saw how her arms looked more and more like they had been carved from the dark wood that her mother sometimes had bought for furniture out of Norvos.

She heard some of her women complaining of the color, of the sun beating down strong overhead and heating their hair so that it burned to touch, but Nymeria chose to wear it as a badge of pride.  Better for your skin to be burnished by the sun than by the Fourteen Flames. Better it come from honest toil and freedom than from slavery.

When she could, Nymeria rowed as well.  There was something relieving about making her muscles work till they screamed. She’d noticed that as a girl training with her blade.  And she saw that it gave them heart, having her at the oars with them from time to time. It showed them that she was fighting along side them.  She trained on deck with the warriors as well, sparring with Ysil every day even though she knew he could throw her overboard if he wanted.  _Let them see him as my strong right arm, and let them see me fighting for them_ , she thought. _If I don’t fight for them, why should they fight for themselves?_

*

“Do you think they wish we’d never left?” Nymeria dared ask one night.  She was sitting with Chroya, staring out at the sea, watching as the setting sun painted red and yellow and purple across the sky to the west. It was beautiful, and Nymeria had never once seen colors like that in the sky. 

“Do you?” Chroya asked. Her fingers were trailing up and down Nymeria’s arms, cool as they traced sweat away.  Her hands were still soft.  She had not pulled ropes or rowed aboard the ship.  Nymeria had said that those who were infirm would not have to work until they were well.  Some had understood, and taken those orders in stride, while others had murmured that it wasn’t fair.  One thing Nymeria had learned was that there would always be those who thought what she said was unfair, no matter how hard she tried to be just.

“I am free,” Nymeria answered, and Chroya’s hand stilled.

“That is not an answer,” she pointed out.

“How is freedom not—”

“Because you never knew bondage or death.  Because those who are here with us now did not either.  They flee the unknown, and leave the known behind.  Do you wish you had never left?”

Nymeria stared at the waters, then sighed and shook her head.  “I miss home,” she said.  “I miss my mother.”  She did her best not to think of her mother—or rather, to remember her teachings more than her person. When she remembered her mother, misery washed over her, and the fear that she would never be so good a leader as her mother.  _What if this was a mistake?_ Her mother would have known. And she thought her mother would have done the same, but she wasn’t sure.

Chroya looked down at her lap, frown lines crossing her forehead.  “I do as well,” she said.  “My mother should have lived a thousand years and lead our people to triumph over Valyria. Instead, she burned with the rest at Volon Therys.”

Nymeria remembered Chroya’s mother, Princess Sargenel with a kind smile.  “She was great, and good, and—”but Chroya cut her off, and Nymeria knew all too well the look on her face. She didn’t want to think of her mother either.  The pain was too great.

So they sat in silence, and Chroya rested her head on Nymeria’s shoulder and they watched as the colors in the sky faded to blackness.

*

Elia’s child was born on a hot day when Nymeria was not there.  She did not hear her sister’s cries or her prayers.  She only heard the cry of the babe when she returned from the Ghoyan Drohe and felt her stomach lurch as she hurried into her sister’s cabin.

Serra was there with Elia, holding Lhoral and hushing her while Elia—ashen and covered in sweat—held the babe to her breast as Saria helped clean the mess between her legs.

“A boy,” Elia whispered to Nymeria through chapped lips as her sister hurried to her and sat down next to her.  Elia was trembling when Nymeria wrapped her arms around her.  “He’s so beautiful.”

Nymeria kissed her sister’s forehead then looked down at the wrinkly creature in her arms. She wasn’t sure she’d call the babe beautiful—not yet.  He was too fresh from the womb, but he was…he was something.  Small.  Precious. Other words that failed Nymeria.

“Yandar?” she asked Elia, but Elia shook her head.  “I could not,” she whispered.  “I’d…” she swallowed, and Nymeria saw misery mixed with the exhaustion in her sister’s eyes.

“I’m sorry I was not here,” Nymeria said quickly.  She looked over at Serra, and Serra came and brought Lhoral to her. Nymeria took the girl—wriggling and curious—in her arms and held her close.  “I should have been here with you.”

Elia bit her lip and looked at Nymeria through thick dark lashes.  “I wish you had been, but I know you couldn’t be,” she said quickly, as though saying it fast would somehow make it easier to hear.  “I know you have so much to do, and my needs are only the needs of a sister when all of our people await you.”

It was true, but it did not sit well with her.  She glanced at Serra and Saria who both took her gaze as a sign to leave.   “No,” she said quickly. “I—I wanted to thank you. For helping and being here where I could not.”

“Of course, Princess,” Serra said at once, and Saria smiled.  Then they both left.

Nymeria sighed and leaned back against the wooden wall of the cabin.  “I’m here now,” she whispered to her sister.  “I’m here with you now.”  But even then, her time did not feel her own.  _We sail for their freedom,_ she thought tiredly as Lhoral wriggled in her arms.  _But not mine. I cannot be free so long as I must serve them._

*

“Princess.” Sometimes, Nymeria thought she might come to respond more quickly to her title than her name. Hardly anyone ever called her by her name anymore—not even Elia, or Chroya.  They barely said her name, after all.  One does not say the name of the person one is talking to without sounding very odd indeed.  She missed the days of Nymeria—days when she was just a girl.

She found Druselka standing at her side, leaning over the rail of the ship, looking out over the fleet.

“I did not hear you come aboard,” Nymeria said, reaching for the priestess and clasping her forearm. “Is Drohe Nysar well? Does he have a message for me?”

“No,” Druselka said, “I have my own plea.”

“Oh?” Nymeria did her best to keep her surprise from her voice.  Pleas weren’t uncommon, but she’d never had one of Druselka.

“Our mother misses us,” Druselka said, “Her magic is dead in this poisoned water. She longs for us to ret—”

“No.” Nymeria did not like cutting people off. It felt rude.  If someone had a plea, they should be heard. But this was one she had heard before, from more witches than just Druselka, and though she may know Druselka, though her magic had served them well in leaving the Rhoyne, it made no matter.

“Why not?” Druselka asked.

“I should think you would know,” Nymeria said.  “How many abandoned towns did we pass?  How many empty places that had once been thriving?”

“The Mother will protect us.”

“The Mother did not protect us, and has since pushed us from her nest.  We cannot go back, Druselka.  Slavery and death await us.  Would you have that?”

Druselka looked at her, her eyes dark, and she weighed her words carefully.  “I would have the freedom to choose my own fate,” she said. It was like a slap. Not once had Nymeria felt as though she was forcing anyone to do anything.  Not even when some had turned back. 

“Why now? Why not when the first turned back?” she asked.

“The Mother was still with us then.” Druselka’s voice was even and unreadable.

Nymeria’s hand tightened on the rail.  “Serra said she wasn’t.”

“Perhaps not to Serra. But I am stronger. She was with me for longer.” Nymeria looked at the priestess closely and saw tightness at the corner of her eyes.  _She lies,_ Nymeria thought.  _She lies, though why I do not know._ It was an uneasy thought.  

“You may go if you like,” Nymeria said at last.  “I will not take that choice from you.  But I continue on.  And those who go with me go with me.” 

Druselka inclined her head. “Princess,” she said, and she turned away, crossing the deck of the ship and climbing down to where her own row boat was undoubtedly still tied.  Nymeria watched her go, that feeling of unease not dissipating with the priestess’ departure.

Nor the sting in her words. _I would have the freedom to choose my own fate._ Had Nymeria truly denied that to her people?  Or was that simply the way of ruling?  Her mother would know.

*

It sailed between the ships like a call of a bird that circled around the spires of Ny Sar. “Land!  Land!”

 _Land_.  Nymeria stood at the prow of the ship, and she too could see it, off in the distance. A black line.  _Don’t be a mirage_ , she prayed, but she knew it wasn’t.  It grew thicker with every passing moment and before long, she heard Ysil shouting to some of the women that they would take some of the river boats and rowboats to shore to scout.

“I’m coming too,” Nymeria said to him. 

“It might be dangerous,” he said automatically. 

 _Good_ , Nymeria wanted to say, but didn’t. Instead, she said, “What sort of Princess sits back and waits for her scouts to tell her if it’s safe?”

“This one,” came Chroya’s voice, and Nymeria winced.  She had not meant it to sound an attack and she turned to apologize to Chroya, but Chroya merely laughed.  “Were I in better health or half so bold as you, I would go too,” she said.  “But that’s not my way.  Go. Lead.”  _You should be as bold as me,_ Nymeria thought sadly. _If you were, the Ar Noy would have nothing ill to think of you._

“Nymeria,” Ysil said in a low voice.  “What if…” but his voice trailed away when he saw her expression.

The island they’d come upon was rocky, and not large.  After several hours, they were able to cross it entirely, and Nymeria could see other islands off the shore in the distance.  They must have come around at exactly the right angle to have missed the other, larger ones.  It was on the far shore that Ysil raised a hand and they stilled, following his gaze. A town sat on the southern shore of the island. 

“How big?” Nymeria asked, and felt stupid almost immediately.  They were the scouting party.  Ysil had no more information than she had.  But Ysil was narrowing his eyes, keeping his gaze focused on the town.

“Small,” he said. “We are more than they. But if there are more towns on the island…”

“We can always set sail again,” Nymeria said.

“The ships need repair. And restocking, if we can find trade here…”

“Maybe they’re friendly?” Nymeria suggested, half in despair.  Ysil knew the tales of the Basilisk Isles as well as she did, of pirates who were as likely to gut a ship as trade with her. 

“Maybe.” He did not sound convinced of anything. 

“We’ll stay on the north shore,” Nymeria said at last.  “Keep to ourselves as best we can.  If we’re able to establish a camp—even if only for a few days…and maybe if we’re here longer it could be…” she didn’t dare hope that this island would be their new home. She did not like the look of the village on the southern side of the island.  Taking a closer look, she could see pens that were too big to be for pigs or livestock, and she shuddered. _But will any other place be safer?_ What was she expecting? To find an uninhabited land and make it her own?  Even she knew that was silly. A girlish dream. Chances were they would have to fight. _But for this rock?_

There weren’t even many fruit bearing trees, and from the looks of the town, this wasn’t the sort of land you farmed…

“We’ll see,” she said at last.  “We’ll see what this place holds for us.”

 

9,780

“Princess!”

Nymeria jerked awake. It was still dark outside, and she could hear the crash of the waves on the shore.  The crash of waves, and panicked shouts.

She untangled herself from her blankets, and felt Chroya stir next to her.

“What’s happening?” Chroya asked, as Nymeria shrugged on her tunic. 

“I’m not sure,” she said, her voice low.

Chroya sat up, her hair falling over her shoulders while she fumbled around in the dark to find her own tunic.

Nymeria could hear steel clanging, and shouts, and could taste smoke through the canvas of the tent, and she felt her heart pumping hard in her chest.  _We’re under attack_. That was the only reason she’d be able to hear steel. 

Chroya began to cough, violently, and Nymeria glanced at her, reaching a hand out to pat her back.  “Go on,” Chroya said between coughs.  “I’ll be fine. I’ll catch you up.”

“You’re sure?”

“Go.” And she did.  She tugged on her boots and grabbed her own sword, not bothering to fasten her scabbard to her belt as she pelted from the tent.

She saw flames in the distance, along the shore.  Tents burning.

“Ysil!” she hollered, and he materialized as if from thin air. 

“Pirates,” he said to her. He had his spear in hand, and his tortoise shield.  Nymeria took off at a run, and Ysil followed her, calling for the whole beach to hear, “To the Princess!”

It had been a long while since Nymeria had run.  She had done her fair share of work on deck—climbing rigging, rowing in the doldrums, swabbing, even, when it was her turn.  She had helped train the younger ones as well—so few of them were true warriors, that even her rusty swordscraft was welcome.  The sand tugged at her boots as she sprinted, and as she ran, more and more of the Rhoynar ran with her until they were a great wave crashing down on whoever was burning the eastern stretch of shore.

Nymeria let out a cry—long and ululating as she had when she’d charged at Valysar. But not many of those who followed were warriors, and not many knew to shout as well.  But some did, and some was enough.

They reached the burning tents, and, to Nymeria’s horror, she saw that there weren’t just tents ablaze, but boats as well.  And, worse, there was not nearly so much blood on the sand as she’d dreaded, which could only mean that they’d taken those Rhoynar they’d found as prisoners, rather than killing them outright. 

She heard a laugh, and a man’s growl, and another man speaking in a tongue she could not understand, and she saw two of them, leaning on their swords, wearing thick leather jerkins. The taller of the two had no hair, and his face was covered in the festival scars she’d heard tell of when she was a girl.  The shorter was dark haired, dark eyed, and did not look remotely concerned at the sight of them.

“Where are they,” she barked at them, not even knowing if they could understand her Rhoynish tongue. She did not know what language they did speak.  _They’ll know Valyrian, probably_ , she thought bitterly. Everyone knew Valyrian.

The taller of the two shrugged, and the shorter looked at him.  He said something in that strange tongue of his before turning his eyes back to Nymeria. She did not like the way that he was looking at her, eyes darting up and down her body. 

“Where are they,” she repeated, stepping forward.  Ysil stepped forward with her, and grabbed her arm.

“Princess,” he hissed, but the tall man was laughing.

“This be little Princess slaves talk,” he said.  Nymeria had been right: his words were Valyrian, and garbled.  His accent was thick and even though she could understand all he said, Nymeria only registered one word.  _Slaves_.

“I am Nymeria of Ny Sar,” she said, glad that, if she had to speak this of all tongues, that her grammar and accent were impeccable.  She’d learned Valyrian when she’d been barely a spit of a girl at Princess Meria’s command. She would have thought she’d have to will her voice not to quaver, but it held.  She had not expected that.  “Princess of the Rhoyne and commander of these people.”  She sensed it would make her seem weak if she tried to explain that she was one of three, and that the other two were sickly. She hoped those listening would guess that as well, and not assume that she was usurping the power of those who were absent. 

“Slaves,” he repeated, then thumped his chest.  “Howling Mountain.”  He pointed at the shorter man.  “Talon.”

“We are not your slaves,” she said.  Were it not for Ysil’s grip on her arm, she would have taken another step forward.  The tall man was tall, but she was taller still, and she’d noticed that when you towered over someone, whether they intended it or not, they shrunk away from you, and she would press every advantage she had if she could. They had not crossed half the world, dreading dragons chancing upon them, just to be slaves to someone else.

Howling Mountain laughed. “My beach.  My rules.”

“Oh?” Nymeria asked. She tightened her grip on her sword, and Ysil’s grip on her arm was so tight that she could feel the lower half of her arm begin to fall asleep.

Howling Mountain noticed it.  His face split into a smile. He lifted his own sword from the sand. “Oh,” he said simply.

“This beach is empty,” she said.  “There is not a soul here, and has not been for at least a month.”  That they had determined earlier, looking at the state of the flora that grew just inland of the sands.

“Beach empty,” Howling Mountain said, then his face widened in a leer.  “Still mine.”

Talon growled something, and Howling Mountain replied.  Nymeria waited.

“Talon wise. Howling Mountain kind,” he said at last. “You stay,” he smiled.

Nymeria’s eyes narrowed.

“And what of those you carried off?” she demanded.  

Howling Mountain raised an eyebrow and she pointed to the water.  He laughed.  “Slaves,” he said simply.

“No,” she said firmly, and he shook his head.

“Nymeria nothing. Slaves.  Ours.”

“We will take them back,” she said fiercely, and Howling Mountain laughed again.

“No. Now—more of you. Tomorrow, more of us. You die.  Slaves.”

She felt bile rise in her throat.  She had no way of knowing if he was bluffing—none at all.  But she wasn’t sure she dared believe that there were fewer of his men than hers. Besides—they were not warriors.

“Stay,” Howling Mountain repeated shrugging.  He pointed across the water.  “Isle of Toads—yours. Each year, you thirty virgin girls and boys to me, to Talon.  We won’t kill you.”

“And what of them?” she demanded.

He raised his eyebrows incredulously at her.  “Slaves,” he repeated for what he clearly thought was one time too many.

Nymeria stared at him, evenly.  He had a hard face. And she saw no lies there.

“No,” she said, damning herself as her voice cracked.  She shook off Ysil’s arm at last.

“No?”

“No.” And she took that step forward, and another.

Talon growled something, and Howling Mountain replied and Nymeria shifted her grip on her sword. She wished her hands weren’t sweating, wished the breeze off the sea was actually cooling to her.

“Leave,” she said. “We leave at sunrise. Get off my beach.”

“Your beach?” Howling Mountain laughed and Nymeria stepped towards him again, her sword raised, ready for one of them to attack.  She was looming over the pair of them, feeling cold fury shining out of her eyes.

“My beach,” she growled, impulsively adopting Howling Mountain’s accent as she spoke in Valyrian.

The laughter on his face faded and his eyes fell to her sword and then, more obviously, to Ysil’s spear. He shrugged. “Sail away,” he shrugged and he jerked his head and he and Talon retreated through the flaming camp towards their men.

She saw them jump into boats and row away.

“Rest up,” she shouted to those who had followed her.  “We leave at dawn.”  She turned to Ysil. “Tell Drohe Nysar. Or Druselka.  Or whoever is awake.” 

“Princess…” he began, but paused and did not continue, seeing the look on her face.

She turned on her heel and marched through the crowd, feeling weight on her shoulders. She stared out at the sea.

They’d only just come off their ships, and now they were to sail away again.  She closed her eyes, dreading telling Chroya that she would once again suffer her sea-stomach. 

She could laugh.

That was nothing—nothing at all.

How many had Howling Mountain and Talon taken?  She did not want to think on it.  And would the rest lose all hope?  All faith that she was strong?  Now that she turned tail and fled at the first sight of pirates?  They had enough soldiers to have killed the raiders, but she had not known how many they had wherever it was that they’d taken…

She stopped and walked towards the water, watching as the tide washed over her boots.

“I can’t save them,” she whispered to the moon.  “I can’t save them—not these ones, nor the ones who went back to Volantis. How many more am I going to have to leave behind?”

“As many as it takes to save the rest of us.”

She had not heard Elia come up behind her, but then again, Elia had always been quiet as a shadow. Her sister wrapped an arm around her waist.

“They are slaves,” she murmured.  “I should save them.”

“We would die,” Elia said. “We do not have enough warriors to make an army yet.  Perhaps in a few years when we’ve had more time to train, and when the children are grown older. But not now.  You promised to save us all.  I don’t think anyone expects you to keep that promise for true. But you’ll try.”

“And I’ve already failed it,” Nymeria said, blinking furiously, her eyes stinging in the breeze. “What sort of Princess abandons her people in their hour of need?”

“You haven’t. Not once.”

“I have,” she said, jabbing her finger towards where Howling Mountain had stood. “I’m not—”

“They aren’t the only ones who need you.  We all do. Each needs you in a different way. You can only try your best. You’d betray the rest of us if you went after them, because if you were lost, what would become of us? You are our hope, Nymeria. And we have none.”

Nymeria felt tears on her cheeks now and she stared out at the ocean.  “Why me?” she asked, trying not to sound as though she were sobbing. “I betrayed them. There’s always going to be someone I’m betraying.”

“Such is being a princess,” Elia said.  “I’d have thought your mother would have taught you that.”  Somewhere, far away, Nymeria remembered sitting on the banks of the Rhoyne, coughing up water while Elia told her that things always looked easy, even when they weren’t. “And as to why you—because you’re their princess. You’re their princess and you _came_.  You did throw them back.” 

“So? I could not—”

“Don’t always look at what you can’t do, Nymeria,” Elia said, and Nymeria stared at her. “You can do far more than you can’t. And for what it’s worth, I don’t think anyone here thinks you weak for turning away now.  You are the strongest of the three.” 

Nymeria chewed her lower lip.  “I don’t want them to—”

“They’ll think what they think.  What you did was not disappointing.  You ended the danger and are guiding us to safety.  Perhaps we all dread the ships again, but we follow you for freedom. You promise us freedom and you’ve yet to betray that promise.  They know that.  They do. And they’ll follow you for it. Just don’t be afraid to lead them.”

 _I’m so afraid, Elia_ , Nymeria wanted to say, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t tell that to Elia. To Chroya, yes, because Chroya shared the fear, but to Elia…if she told Elia somehow that made it feel like she was failing everyone, her sister, her people, her mother who had raised her to be a strong princess. 

Elia squeezed Nymeria tightly, and the two of them stared out at the ocean, watching as the moonlight sent scales across the sea.

 

8,452

When Nymeria had thought that there would be no place on earth that they could go to and find no one to skirmish with over the land, she had never once dreamed she might be wrong.

And yet she was. And never had she been more glad of it.

She walked through the abandoned palace of the city of Zammetar, listening as Saria gave her reports on the city.  “The houses seem mostly to be in good shape, and the farmland hasn’t been salted. There are reports in High Valyrian, but I cannot read High Valyrian, so I do not know what they say.” She handed the writings to Nymeria, who did not ask when and how Saria had learned to read Rhoynish. It did not surprise her at all that the girl had done so.  Nymeria squinted at the writings, and she read aloud, translating as she did so,

“Taken from the Pavraz Zo Qonzak Ghiscar fourth general, Zammetar is of—is in Valyrian control. Five years stayed. Illness from water, wilds of jungle. Freeholders wish to return to Freehold. Not a place for life something…something something…Valyria…” She frowned, and continued to scan the words in her head until she reached the bottom of the report.  “Colony abandoned when armies summoned to Rhoyne. No plans for retaking.” She looked up and saw Saria standing next to her, her eyes glowing. 

“They abandoned it, Saria,” she breathed, excited.  “No one’s here. Just us.  Just for us.” 

“They abandoned it?” Elia asked, and Nymeria whipped around to find her sister standing behind her with Chroya and Drohe Nysar, her face drawn and nervous.

“Yes,” Nymeria said, handing the paper to her sister to read.  Elia could read Valyrian, perhaps she’d understand the parts in the middle better than Nymeria had.  “No one’s here.”

Elia read, her frown deepening as she did so, and when she looked up, she said, “Nymeria, I don’t think we should stay here.  They talk of disease from the water.”

“The water is poison?” Drohe Nysar asked, his voice trembling.  “Our water witches will clean it.”

“Except I don’t think they’ll have the power to,” Nymeria said quietly, looking around. Neither Serra nor Druselka were near, to confirm, so she turned to Elia.  “I don’t think that the Zamoyos has the magic of the Mother Rhoyne.”

Elia hummed noncommittally. “I haven’t felt her, but she may. Perhaps her current is different. We’ll have to find the current. But Nymeria...”

“And what if the Valyrians return?” Chroya asked.  She was holding the writing now, and reading it carefully.  “Are there more pages like these?” she asked Saria.

“Perhaps in the general’s study.  I wouldn’t know what to look for,” Saria said quickly, and Chroya nodded. 

“Take me there. I’ll look myself.”

“Someone should teach me Valyrian,” Saria said pointedly.  “It would be useful.”

“I will teach you,” Chroya said.  “But take me—”

“If the Valyrians come back,” Nymeria said loudly, “They’ll come by sea.  We have the land and the water.  We will fight and we will win.”

“And if they send their dragons south?” Chroya asked.

“No message will make it across the sea,” Nymeria said firmly, doing her best not to think of how much blood would need to be shed to prevent such a message, especially given their lack of true warriors.  “But that’s a long way off.  For now, we’ll tend to the city.”  She felt excited—alive. This—this was what she’d hoped for. And it was almost too good to be true. She hardly could believe their luck.

Chroya and Saria disappeared into the depths of the palace, leaving Nymeria and Elia and Drohe Nysar behind.  “It is as though the Mother Rhoyne brought our path here,” Nymeria said doing her best not to let Elia’s frown dampen her spirits.  “There are even fountains here, Elia.”  There were.  Great stone fountains that dribbled water.  Saria had already gone to investigate why they dribbled rather than flowed, and had set a team to clear out some of the pipes which had grown thick with plants. When they were clear, Zammetar would sound like home.

*

“They are restless.” Saria’s voice sounded edgy.

“Restless?” Drohe Nysar said, “We’ve only just gotten here.  There’s much work to be done to make the city all it can be. How can they be restless?” Zammetar had given him a spark of life, it seemed, even as his health deteriorated.  Druselka hinted that the air was too heavy with humidity for his lungs.  But never had the Prince of Ghoyan Drohe sounded quite so energetic when they met.

Saria grimaced and looked at Nymeria, who sighed. 

“It’s more of the same, isn’t it?” Nymeria said, and Saria nodded.

“More of what same?” Drohe Nysar asked.

But it was Chroya who spoke, her voice plain.  “They think us weak.”

“Weak?” Drohe Nysar said. “How can they, when we’ve brought them this far?  I thought we’d managed to keep them from—”

“Not all of us,” Chroya said. “Just you.  And me, I think.  Nymeria is the strong one.  I do not think they are restless with her.”

Drohe Nysar frowned, looking at Nymeria.  Then he turned to Saria.

“And what do they say of me and Princess Chroya?”

If the former scullion was nervous about speaking before this old Prince, she did not show it. “That you hold too much power for one who does nothing.  That your voice, while undoubtedly wise, is one that only serves to advise, and thus do you truly merit your crown?  We are one city now. Do we need three Princes?”

Drohe Nysar nodded slowly, considering.  “My Ghoyan Drohe think me weak?”

“Old,” Saria corrected him. “Thirty years too old to be effective.”

“And Chroya?”

Saria glanced at Chroya. “That she follows. That her crown is ceremonial. That it is Nymeria who is truly the Princess, and Chroya…”

Chroya sighed. “Chroya the counselor,” she said. “That’s who I was raised to be. To advise my brother, who was to have been prince.  The Ar Noy don’t want me anymore?”

“Some do,” Saria said. “And they pick fights with those who think you—”

“Should never have been princess?”

“Have more power in name than you truly hold.”

 _Diplomatic,_ Nymeria thought vaguely looking at Saria before saying, “It does not matter what they think.  Drohe Nysar is the Prince of Ghoyan Drohe, and Chroya is Princess of Ar Noy.  The Ghoyan Drohe and the Ar Noy—”

“You know,” Chroya interrupted her, thoughtfully.  “I’ve always wondered…where does my crown come from?  From my blood?  My mother? It comes from them, doesn’t it. Why would they think that I have power when I don’t, and if they don’t think I have power, do I?”

“Chroya,” Nymeria began, but Chroya was laughing a humorless laugh.

“I used to think when I was a girl that it was silly—that a city is a small thing, and that people could rule themselves.  Have one person in charge of the armies, but the rest—the rest could be done somehow from within. A council of sorts—like this one.” She shook her head.

“They’ll not get rid of you.  I won’t let them,” said Nymeria.

“Nymeria,” Chroya said, “You don’t have a choice.  The Ar Noy are not yours to command.  And even if they were—would you truly so violate the will of your people? Just because you are Princess doesn’t mean you can do as you please.”

“A Prince is the servant of his people,” said Drohe Nysar.  “Or else he is not truly a prince.  They are right—I am old.  And Chroya is a councilor.”

“But—but you can’t just—you can’t just _let_ them unseat you!” Nymeria said, horrified at the concept.

But her words were met with silence, and she stared at them horrified, trying not to feel betrayed. “Who will they replace you with?” Nymeria demanded.  “Who will help me?” She stared at Chroya, but Chroya wouldn’t look at her.  Chroya, who was supposed to be her equal in all things, a princess, a friend, a lover—and she wouldn’t look at Nymeria.  _She has given up already,_ Nymeria thought bitterly.

“You want this,” Nymeria said, getting to her feet angrily.  “You want to be free of the responsibility.”

“You think I want my people to throw me aside?” Chroya demanded angrily.  “Nothing would bring me greater shame!  But what can I do?”

“Not let them,” Nymeria said fiercely.

“As if it were so simple. Not all is a war to be fought, Nymeria.”

“No, but you must still fight,” she snapped.  She turned and left, slamming the door behind her, not wanting to be followed, hoping that Chroya wouldn’t.  She wasn’t sure she could look at Chroya right now.

But she heard footsteps. It was a familiar gait, and for a moment, she was home in her mother’s palace again.  “Saria,” she said.  “What is it?”

“I thought you might want to know who they want to replace them with.”

“Not really,” Nymeria said glumly, and she kept walking, and did not hear Saria following her.

*

On the fifth day after setting off down the Zamoyos, they reached Yeen, and Nymeria felt prickling on the back of her neck.  She looked out over the prow of the riverboat they’d refitted in Zammetar and squinted into the darkness.

It was a dark city—made of oily black stone.  It was completely desolate, some blocks of the city had fallen, but it was as if some pieces from a puzzle had fallen from a table and had been left unmoved for hundreds of years. When they had passed Sarhoy, the city’s stones had been covered in moss, there had been grasses that grew between the fallen stones. In Yeen, there was nothing of the sort.

“Well?” Serra asked, her hands on her hips.  “Are you coming inside?”

“Will the city spit us out again?” Nymeria asked warily.  Serra laughed.

“Surely you don’t believe those stories, N—Princess.”

Nymeria reached out and ran her hand over the oily black stone that marked the gateway to Yeen. It was cool beneath her fingers. It felt familiar, though Nymeria did not know how.  She had never seen such stone before.

“What should I believe that is not before my eye, Serra?”

Serra smiled. She’d always been a little sanctimonious, and this smile was no different.  Condescending, even while deferential.  Nymeria did not know how she managed that. “Do you not feel it?” She sounded excited.

“Feel what?”

“Magic,” Serra breathed. “Like running your hands in the Mother Rhoyne and feeling her current.  Surely you feel it, Princess.  You moved the waters of the river.”

 _Not half so well as you did,_ Nymeria thought bitterly. Serra liked to remind her of that. Perhaps it made her feel better about not having felt the current since they left the Rhyone.

She touched the dark stone again and felt the chill in her spine again.  _Ah yes.  I feel it now._

Tentatively, carefully, Nymeria stepped onto the black stone where Serra was now standing, smiling at her in that patronizing way.  The chill shot through her feet, and she straightened her shoulders.

They moved through the city together, exploring it.  There were houses, market stalls, meeting halls, even a palace, all wrought in the same oily black stones.  But there was no sign of life—not even signs of death.  No corpses littered the streets, no scent of rotting flesh, that Nymeria had become so familiar with while they had fled the Rhoyne. It was completely empty. Even the fountains did not flow with water from the Zamoyos.  There was no familiar burble of water to remind her of home.

“It’s perfect,” Serra said happily.  “We shall settle here, and have the magic of the river to help us build a great empire once again. The dragonlords would be fools to come this far.  They do not like being so distant from their Fourteen Flames.”

“Do you hear that?” Nymeria asked, sharply. 

“Hear what?” Serra asked, falling still.  Nymeria was looking around, trying to pinpoint it.  It sounded like gasping air, or maybe some sort of tinny whistling. Nymeria closed her eyes to focus on it. It, too, was familiar. Though where she would have heard a sound like that…

“This place is cursed,” Nymeria said.  “It is far from perfect.”

“Don’t be superstitious, Princess,” Serra said, reaching out and patting her arm. “I’m sure it is well.”

“It is a city so evil that even the jungle will not enter, Serra.  I will not bring my people here.”

There was something hooded in Serra’s eyes now, and she reached out and ran her hands over the black stone again.  “I should like to stay. There is magic here. I do not think it is cursed.”

“Serra—”

“We are weak, Nymeria. So far from our mother, all that we’ve known is useless.”

“It is not,” Nymeria said hotly.

But Serra shook her head. “You never lived with magic as I did, or as our other water wizards did.  We mourn it like a lost babe.  I want to stay here.  It feels like home.”

“Serra,” Nymeria said again, trying not to sound like a whining child, “Please Serra. It is cursed.  It is a place of death.”

But Serra shook her head. “You let others go back to Volantis, why not let me and those who would stay in this place of death.” Her words were a dagger in Nymeria’s gut, and Nymeria felt herself taking a step back, watching Serra closely. Serra showed no remorse in her words. If anything, she looked pleased. Her mark had hit. _She knows how to hurt me_ , Nymeria thought, numbly. _My dear friend, and she would hurt me to have her way_.

Serra was still speaking. “The Mother brought life to the world. Perhaps we can bring life here with her teachings.”  _She sounds like Druselka._

“You will not force people to follow you here,” Nymeria said at last, every word ringing of her own weakness.  “And you will send me messages regularly to let me know you live.”

Serra smiled, but it was not Serra’s smile.

8,451

“I do not like it here,” Elia said one night over dinner.  Her girl Lhoral sat in her lap, and her babe Yandry was strapped between her breasts, sleeping peacefully while she ate.  Yandry was a fitful little boy.  Elia had named him for their father.

Nymeria raised her stew to her lips and sucked the broth down first before chewing at the fish. It was not sweet, the way the fish of the Rhoyne had been.  In fact, it had little flavor at all.

“We will never like a place so much as home,” Chroya said.  Her portion was smaller than either Elia’s or Nymeria’s, but she was picking at it. Nymeria wanted to tell her to eat it all, but Chroya often left half her food untouched.  She was so thin.  Nymeria thought it only made her health worse. 

“Perhaps,” Elia said, “I never expect to like a place so well as Ny Sar.  But I do not like this place.  I think we can find a better one.”

“Oh?

“A place we are better suited to, and which does not eat us alive.”

“Zammetar does not eat us alive, Elia,” Nymeria said, dryly. 

Elia glared at her. “Blood boils,” she said, holding up one finger.  “Green fever,” she listed another, “Sweetrot.  Bronze Pate. Red Death, brownleg, wormbone, sailor’s bane, pus-eye, yellowgum,” she lifted a finger for each illness, as if Nymeria did not know that many of her people were ailing.  “Fish that attack us if we touch the Zamoyos, worms that lay their eggs in your flesh if you swim near them, and wild cats that carry off children if they get too close to the jungle.  This is no place for us, Nymeria, and you know it.”

Nymeria took a deep breath, gathering her thought, and pushing her anger down. She had been so angry lately. She did not like it. She was sure she had her reasons, of course, and Chroya had certainly tried to soothe the rage sometimes, but even when she managed, there was still that lingering feeling that Chroya could be doing more, and that she left too much to Nymeria to do for herself. But it was one thing to be angry, and quite another to be angry with Elia.

“We will die if we stay here,” Elia continued, her face hard, her expression mulish. “Quite as profoundly as we would die in bondage.”

“I am aware, Elia.”

“The river is poisonous,” her sister continued angrily.  “The Zamoyos is no replacement for our Mother Rhoyne, and you know it.”

“Nothing can replace our Mother,” Nymeria said.  “Sometimes to grow, you must leave your mother’s breast.”

Elia laid a hand on Yandry’s head.  “I would like my children to know a true river, not this cursed thing.”

It was all Nymeria could do not to glare at her.  What was she supposed to do?  Tell everyone to pack up their ships again, after they’d come so recently off them? Ships that were now being refitted and rebuilt and taken care of—it would be dangerous to put them in the Summer Sea again, and even if they did, where would they go? North to Ghiscar and slavery? To Qarth?  Yi Ti?  Asshai by the Shadow? They would never find home again, surely Elia must know that.  At least in Zammetar they were free.  But before she could open her mouth to speak, the door to their dining room opened and Druselka stepped inside.

“Princesses,” Druselka said, her voice doleful and Nymeria felt a prickling on the scalp. “I come from Drohe Nysar. He would have you by his bedside.”

“Is his illness worse?”

“He is dying, and has not long remaining him in this world.”

Nymeria hurried from the room, Chroya behind her, leaving Elia and Lhoral and Yandry alone.

“Did he say anything?” Nymeria asked Druselka as they moved through the great palace of Zammetar.

“No, Princess. Simply that he would see you once more before he joined his family in the Mother’s arms.”

_The Zamoyos is no replacement for our mother Rhoyne, and you know it._

Drohe Nysar’s skin was hanging loosely from his bones.  His eyes were fevered, his lips were cracked.  Nymeria sat on one side, and Chroya on the other.

“Here,” Druselka said, handing her a gourd of water.  “I boiled it. It will not harm him.”

“Drohe Nysar,” Nymeria whispered, holding the gourd over his lips and tipping the water in. He made a noise, but he didn’t say a word.  “I am here. You are not alone,” she whispered.

Had her mother died like this?  Pale and failing and alone? Nymeria took Drohe Nysar’s hand. “Your people are safe with me,” she whispered.

“Choose,” he rasped, but choose what, she did not know.  She never would.  He made a rattling sound, an oddly familiar sound that sent a shiver down her spine. _It was the sound I heard in Yeen_ , she thought horrified. _Death_.

She looked up at Chroya, who returned her gaze sadly.  Druselka stepped forward and closed Drohe Nysar’s eyes, and murmured a prayer of peace.  “I will prepare him for burning,” she said, and Nymeria nodded, blinking back tears, trying to blink back her own fear.

 

XVII

8,231

“Saria will be back soon,” she heard Elia say to Chroya, but if Chroya reacted, Nymeria didn’t hear it. Her stomach twisted and she looked out of the window, towards the sea.  The sun was setting and it was glittering like a great gemstone. Once, she’d lived in a palace that had been covered with lapis lazuli.  She had loved it, how brilliant the color was, how smooth the stone. Her mother had always favored gemstones that seemed to shine with their own light, but Nymeria had always liked the solidity of lapis. 

Off in the distance, she heard the shouts from the plaza, and her stomach twisted again.

The Ghoyan Drohe were choosing.  And when they had chosen, Nymeria would have a new Prince or Princess to negotiate.

She had liked Drohe Nysar. He had been wise and he had trusted her. She had trusted him. What if this new Prince or Princess did not trust her?  What if discord awaited her, awaited them all? 

 _I am worrying for nothing_ , she thought. _All will be well._

She’d felt as though she’d had no end to worries since she had come to Zammetar. It was as if the buzzing in Yeen had never left her head, and nothing could make it abate—not quiet thoughts with Elia, playing with Lhoral and Yandry, not Chroya’s smile, not even Saria’s peevish expression whenever she disapproved of whatever it was that Nymeria thought was best. 

 _Death_ , she thought, every night before she fell asleep.

If Elia felt that her fears of staying in Zammetar fell on deaf ears, she did not know how wrong she was.

 _Death_.  _This place is cursed_. 

It felt like every day, Nymeria saw them pile bodies along the river to prepare for burning and release to the Zamoyos.  She saw the water witches along the water—Druselka, and Ghogoni and others she did not know—praying over dead flesh.  While such was not abnormal—Nymeria had seen the dead along the Rhoyne as a girl, it felt like their numbers were high. 

She wondered if she proposed setting sail again, would her people come willingly. She could not force them to follow her. They were not her slaves. How much did they dread whatever else the world held for them?

_It has been a year.  Perhaps they will have forgotten how horrible the open sea can be. We have better ships for seafaring now._

Her thoughts were broken by the door opening, and Saria stepped inside.  The girl had grown in the past year, and she was not so tall as Nymeria, but she was less a girl than a woman now.  Her face was thinner, her chest had swelled, and her hips were wide.  Little Gerris, too, was growing, and growing fast. 

“Well?” Nymeria asked her.

“Come and see,” Saria said, and there was a forced neutrality to her voice that boded ill.

Nymeria followed her through the palace and when she stepped out into the sunshine, she heard the chanting.

“Nymeria. Nymeria.  Nymeria.” 

She scanned the crowd, not sure what she was hearing.  Was there another Nymeria?  One she did not know? But there was no Ghoyan Drohe Princess awaiting her.  And the Ghoyan Drohe were chanting loudest of them all.  She stared out over the plaza, her name ringing in her ears, nearly loud enough to wash away the buzzing from Yeen. 

“Nymeria! Nymeria!  Nymeria!” 

They were cheering now—Ghoyan Drohe and Ar Noy and Ny Sar—all of them, chanting and cheering her.

“What is happening?” Nymeria heard Chroya ask, and Druselka stepped forward from the crowd. She bowed low to Nymeria, then waited for the crowd to pause their chanting that she could speak.

“The Five Families of Ghoyan Drohe are no more.  The Dragons burned them.  Drohe Nysar was the last.” Druselka’s voice carried like a bell over the crowd.  “Ghoyan Drohe, Ny Sar, and Ar Noy are the last of our cities, the last of the Mother Rhoyne’s children. And when we left our ancestral homes, we became one—no longer Ghoyan Drohe, or Ny Sar, or Ar Noy—but Rhoynar. The last of our kind.”

There was a roar from the crowd, and Nymeria knew what was happening and her eyes shot to Chroya. Chroya was leaning against a pillar, her eyes drooping.  She was not looking at Nymeria.  She was looking at the Ar Noy.

“One people only need one princess,” Druselka shouted, more loudly than before. “And that Princess is Nymeria!”

“Nymeria! Nymeria!  Nymeria!”

Nymeria was not a small person.  She stood taller than most everyone she met—including the men.  But she had never felt smaller, or younger, only barely seventeen, than she did as she stood at the top of the steps of the great Palace of Zammetar, looking out over her people, who screamed her name and called her their salvation. _I’m trying_ , she thought.  She wanted to apologize for those she’d let sail back to slavery, for those she had not rescued, for those who had died, for those whose ships had been rafts, destroyed by the first storm they’d encountered on the sea.

But she was the Princess of Ny Sar, the Princess of the Rhoynar…

She thought of Chroya. What did that mean for her? Was she not still a Princess of Ar Noy? Of the blood of the Seven Families? She had been Nymeria’s equal. What was she now?

Uncrowned. Set aside by her own people. _I will never let them do that to me,_ she thought, even as her heart ached for Chroya.  She glanced back at the pillar.  Chroya was gone. _Will they think her weak for leaving?_ She hated that that question crossed her mind.  _I will be strong for them. They chose me because I am strong, what does it matter if I feel small?  I will be what they need of me._

She closed her eyes for a moment, then raised a hand and silence fell over the plaza.

“You do me honor,” she called, and there was a cheer.  “I shall endeavor to serve you.  I know this place is hard.  I know these years have been hard.  But together, we will make a home.”

They cheered again, and she heard someone begin to sing the River Songs.  She felt she should say more, but couldn’t think what. Instead, she rested a hand over her breast, as she had seen her mother do hundreds of time, and listened to the River Songs that her people would never forget, no matter how far they came.

She almost smiled.

But then she saw Gerris sprinting up the steps towards her, Ysil on his tail, his spear in hand.

She frowned. They were supposed to be in Yeen, bringing news of Drohe Nysar’s death to Serra and her wizards.

“Princess,” Gerris said, kneeling before her.  His face was ashen, and he looked afraid.  “Yeen. It’s empty.  There’s no one there—not a soul.  No sign of anyone having ever _been_ there.”

Those closest to Nymeria—close enough to hear what he had said, gasped.  It did not sound like a gasp, though.  It sounded like the buzzing, like Drohe Nysar’s final breath.

“Serra?”

Ysil shook his head. He looked broken.

The crowd had paused its cheering, and she heard whispering like a snake’s hiss. It grew louder and louder and Nymeria could not tell what they were saying, but she thought she kept on hearing, “Death.  Death. Death.”

“No,” she whispered. “We have come too far for this.”

“Princess?” she heard Ysil ask.

“I had hoped that Zammetar would be our home,” she called to her people, her voice sounding almost like a trumpet.  “That here we would be along a river, in a city, as we have always been, and should be still had the Dragons not come to the Rhoyne.  But there is too much death here.  Those who went to Yeen are gone.”  She heard more whispers. “I do not know if this is a sign from our Mother who only wishes that we find a new home.  But I do know this—I will not stay in a place of death. Nor would I will you to. We set sail at the end of the week. We will find a better place.”

She turned and went back into the palace.  When she heard the doors close behind her, she pressed her face to her hands and wept for Serra, wondering what magic had destroyed her, and hoping that she would never find out.

*

She found Chroya sitting by a window.  She looked so small, hunched over, examining her hands and when Nymeria sat next to her, she saw tears in her eyes.  Nymeria did not say a word. Nor did Chroya. Chroya just bent her head and rested it on Nymeria’s shoulder and began to shake and cry in earnest, and Nymeria held her tightly, hating that she must now bear Chroya’s burdens as well as her own, hating that some small part of her was relieved that now, at least, she could do so openly rather than pretending that she didn’t all along.


	4. One Princess

XVIII

They saw a palace on the shore of the island, made of smooth stone.  There were flowers growing on vines around its columns.

“Ysil,” Nymeria called, “Prepare a boat.”

“Only one?”

“Yes. I’ll not bother stopping here if it’s dangerous,” she said, and Ysil and Mok found a rowboat and Nymeria went ashore with a guard of ten. 

They were met by a smiling young woman wearing a purple gown and whose skin was browner than Nymeria’s. The girl asked something, but Nymeria shook her head.  “Valyrian?” she asked, and the girl switched tongues with ease. 

“Welcome,” she said. “Who are you?”

“I am Princess Nymeria of Ny—of the Rhoynar,” Nymeria said.  Those who were with her were mostly of Ny Sar, but all the same, they were one people now, and she was their princess.  All of their lives rested on her now—her weight to bear.  “I would speak with your king.  This is his palace?”

The girl nodded and gestured, and Nymeria followed her inside.  She saw no sign of guards, no armor, shields, or knives or spears. She only saw flowers and the lazy fluttering of butterflies.  Their fluttering was hypnotic, their wings seeming to shimmer through the air. Nymeria had seen butterflies before, but never like this.

“This way,” the girl called and Nymeria shook herself.  She continued following the girl, who led her into a garden with a great fountain in the center.  Water tinkled daintily over the stone, and Nymeria stared at the carvings.  They were floral, not geometric the way the fountains of Ny Sar had been.  But the arc of the water as it flowed…it reminded her of home.  She closed her eyes for a moment.  _Home is my people,_ she reminded herself.  _Not Ny Sar.  You cannot return to Ny Sar.  Not ever._

The King of the Island was seated under a tree, and when he saw Nymeria, his eyes fell to the sword at her hip.  It was mostly ceremonial, of course.  If she wanted anyone dead, she’d have had Ysil do it for her.  “So you come for slaves,” he said sadly in strong Valyrian. Nymeria frowned.

“No,” she said. “I do not come for slaves. We flee slavery.”

The King’s face changed, going from very serious to positively ebullient in just a moment.

“You are not Valyrian?” he asked her.  Nymeria shook her head. “Sometimes they send others to do their work.  Ghiscari or the corsairs of the Basilisk Isles.  They like my people for their slaves.  But if you flee them as well…”

“I am Nymeria of the Rhyone,” she said to him, and his eyes went wide.

“The Rhoynar are dead,” he said.  “We had heard the Mother Rhoyne had burned.”

“We fled,” Nymeria said.

“A sad thing,” he said.

“Indeed,” she agreed. “I lead my people to freedom, though I do not know where that is.  Wherever Valyria cannot touch us.”

“You must tell me all,” the King said.  So she did. She told him of the Basilisk Isles, of Zammetar and Yeen, she told him of being the sole princess of her people, of taking to the seas again despite her broken heart. He listened and nodded, and even patted her arm every now and then.  _He is kind_ , she thought, looking at him.  She should be mistrustful of him, she knew.  Her mother would have been. But his eyes were like Elia’s.

“But you must stay here,” he said at the end.  “There is food aplenty for us all on Naath, and if you would know peace, there are no people more peaceful.”  He clapped his hands, and two young women came to him.  He said some words quickly in his native tongue, then turned back to Nymeria.

“Let it be known that on this day, King Marselen and Princess Nymeria became friends,” he said, sounding thoroughly pleased with himself.  His gaze dropped briefly to her breasts and Nymeria echoed the word, “Friends,” and he smiled at her apologetically. 

Nymeria left King Marselen’s palace with a spring in her step, but it wasn’t until she was safely on the rowboat to bring news back to the Rhoynar that she truly smiled.

*

The Peaceful People were gentle and good.  They helped her Rhoynar build houses, sold them food, some even fell in love.  This, at last, seemed to be the sort of land where they could build.  All she had asked was a space for a single city along the sea, at the westernmost edge of the large island, and Marselen had granted it with another smile and more words of friendship. “The Lord of Harmony will give you land in peace that you would not have taken by force,” he said, sharing a honey wine with Nymeria. 

He had a gown made of butterfly wings sewn for her, and sent one of his sisters to her court that she might befriend the Princess.  Nymeria was kind to Princess Eida, though she kept her distance as best she could. She did not doubt that Marselen had sent her sister to woo on his behalf, and though she trusted him, something had begun to niggle in the back of her mind.  Maybe she was imagining it, but things were almost too easy. But when she told that to Chroya while they were curled up in bed next to one another, Chroya only laughed. “You expect the worst, and why should you not?  The worst keeps following us. But I think this will be well.”

Nymeria kissed her and wanted to believe.  It was easy to let herself believe as the Peaceful People helped her build a tortoise shell fountain in the center of her courtyard that burbled happily on quiet evenings.

*

She awoke, one night, to hands pushing gently at her shoulder.  “Nymeria.”

She turned and squinted through the dark.  “Elia? What’s wrong.”

“Plague,” she whispered. “But…well, come and see.”

Nymeria frowned as she sat up, and found the butterfly dress that Marselen had given to her. She followed her sister out of the bedroom, pausing in the door and wondering if she should bring Chroya with her. _She’s not a Princess anymore, but still, I trust her words._

 _But if there’s illness…she’s not healthy._ She did not wake her.

She followed Elia in silence through the halls of the palace until they were crossing through the gateway into the city itself.  Ysil stepped into pace at her side as they did.

“Any news?” Elia asked him. Ysil shook his head.

“Just that Saria’s trying to understand it,” he grimaced.

“She hasn’t found a cause?”

“Not yet. It may be beyond her skill. She’s clever, but she’s no healer.”

Nymeria doubled her pace, moving faster than the other two as her long legs stretched beneath her.

At the end of the road, she paused, waiting for Elia and Ysil to direct her where to go next, but before they reached her, she heard the moaning and knew.

She pushed into the house, and found Saria sitting by a bed, pressing a compress to a myrmidon’s forhead.

“His skin is hot,” Saria said, “and his skin is growing so tight that I worry it will break the tendons,” she said.

“Have you sent for Druselka?” Nymeria asked her sharply.

“She is in another house with another dying man,” Saria said swiftly.  “I thought different eyes in different places—”

“Unless we all catch it.”

“It doesn’t spread by the man’s breath, Druselka says,” Saria said.  “We don’t know how it spreads.

“Do any of the Peaceful People know what it is?” Nymeria asked and she saw Saria hesitate and knew. “They do, but they won’t say.”

Saria nodded. Nymeria heaved a sigh. “Well, it looks like I shall be paying Marselen a visit.”  She looked at the myrmidon, and grimaced again.  “Do you know what the first symptom looks like?” she asked.

“Fever,” Saria said. “It could be a normal fever, though. That’s the problem.”

“Yes,” Nymeria said, her voice clipped.  She rested a hand on Saria’s head, then turned and left the house.

Elia took her hand as they walked back to the palace.  “I’ll have them bring Druselka to you before you go,” she said even as Nymeria dropped her hand and looked at her sharply.  “What is it?”

Nymeria pressed her hand to Elia’s forehead.

Her skin was hot to the touch and Nymeria wondered if she was cursed.

*

It took two days to ride the distance to Marselen’s palace, and when she reached it, Her people were dying. Not in droves, not yet anyway. There was something about this place, though _Are we doomed to misery and death for leaving our Mother?_ Nymeria wondered.

But they had not found paradise. For her people were dying.

It began with a myrmidon—one of her few. His skin grew hot and soon he was moaning in agony as the muscles in his arms and legs grew so tight that Druselka feared that they might break at the tendons. It spread to one of her priestesses, whose heart failed soon thereafter. And before long, groans of pain fill their city by the sea, but it was not until Elia broke out in a fever that Nymeria rode to Marselen’s palace, where she found him dining on dates and figs.

“Sweet Princess,” he called to her.  “How lovely to see your face.”

But Nymeria was trembling with rage.  Elia had been complaining of pains in her joints the morning that she’d left.  If it had gotten worse… “Tell me,” she said, “ _friend_ , why is it that my people take fever, and your Peaceful People know what the cause is, but will not tell us how to prevent it?” Marselen’s smile slipped.  To his credit, he looked truly as though he was upset by her plight, rather than being caught in whatever lie he’d told her.

“Ah,” he said. “I had hoped…perhaps since the Lord of Harmony brought you here, he would smile upon you. I was mistaken.”

Nymeria’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh?”

“Those who do not meet with the Lord’s blessing…they do not survive in his lands.”

“And you did not tell me?” Nymeria said in cold fury, looking at him. He did not meet her eyes.

“I had hoped the Lord would smile upon you and give you his protection,” he said simply.

“At the risk of my people dying?” she demanded.

“It was a mistake,” Marselen said.  “And kindly meant.”

“Your kindness kills,” she spat as she got to her feet.  She knew it was rude, but she did not care.  No peace—not ever, not even here.  _All lands are cursed, aren’t they?_

So they went. They set sail, and left peaceful Naath with her peaceful people and her beautiful fountains behind.  And two days to the west of the island, Elia’s fever broke, and Nymeria felt some weight on her chest lift.

 

XIX

“My Prince Jhaxaq says that you will make a fine wife,” the little boy translated, and Nymeria’s eyes shot between the translator and the Prince of Walano. He was a handsome man, as handsome as any that Nymeria had seen in the years since she had led her people from the Rhoyne. 

“I said nothing about marriage,” Nymeria said to the translator, her eyes switching mid-sentence to Prince Jhaxaq.

The translator said her words in the Summer Tongue and the Prince threw his head back and laughed, responding rapidly to the translator.

“My Prince says that you ask enough for a dowery, so he claims your marriage. He says you will make a fine wife and a fine lover.”  Nymeria felt her eyes narrow at the translator’s words.  “If you come to live in the Summer Lands with your people, you must become of the Summer. So he will marry you.”

“And if I refuse?” Nymeria demanded hotly. He hadn’t even assumed that he should ask her. Did he take her for some woman he could command at will?  She was a Princess to a people whose blood stretched back thousands of years. Who was he to command her?

“Would you refuse my prince?” the translator asked her, and she knew he was asking for his own curiosity more than because the Prince would want to know.

“And if I refuse?” Nymeria repeated.  She heard shifting behind her, but didn’t glance over her shoulder at Ysil and Saria and Gerris, who stood at her back. 

The translator hesitated and then spoke to the prince.  She watched his face slide from a contented smile into anger, his eyes searing hot in their blackness as he spoke.

“My Prince says he has no space on his island for those who are not his people.  If you would like a place to live, you can try Abulu.”

Nymeria stared at the Prince.  She did not like the word “try” in that sentence.  Nor did she particularly like the gaze of the Prince of Walano.

“I shall bring my people to Abulu,” she said, “While I consider the Prince’s proposal.” She turned and strode from his presence, her three hurrying after her.

“Was that wise?” Ysil asked in a hushed voice, and Nymeria glared at him.  He raised one hand defensively.  “I do not question your decision, I simply do not—”

“Did you hear the language we spoke in?” Nymeria asked him sharply.

“Valyrian?” Ysil asked.

“Why would the Prince of Walano have a Valyrian translator?”

“Trade?” suggested Gerris.

“Yes, but the _Prince_.”

“The slave trade,” Saria said quietly, and Nymeria sighed.  She had known that Saria would know.

“I will not tie myself and my people through marriage to a man who may sell them as slaves when next the dragons come.  Let him prove to me that he is worthy of my hand.  Let me have that much at least before I sell myself like a horse for marriage.”

“You wouldn’t be selling yourself,” Ysil said quietly, sounding a bit pained. “You’re no slave, Nymeria.”

It was the first time in what felt like ages that Ysil had called her anything but Princess. She could hug him for that, but did not. A Princess did not throw herself into the arms of a childhood friend, even if that Princess was Nymeria of Ny Sar. Instead, she patted him on the arm. “Perhaps not,” she said sadly, “But I am not free to live freely.  Every choice I make is for them, not for me.  If it is for their best interest, I will do it, even if I do not wish to do it. I could hardly be called free to live as I would, Ysil.”

Ysil stared at her, his lips parted slightly in surprise.  “I—” he began.  “I had not thought of that.”

Nymeria sighed. “And even besides all that, I do not like being commanded.  Who is he to command me?”

“A prince?” suggested Saria dryly.  “One who is not used to seeing others as equals?”

“I don’t think there are princes who think of others as equals anymore,” Nymeria said sadly. “Perhaps we all faded away when the Rhoynar crowned me their sole Princess.  Perhaps I am the last of them.”

“Well…” Gerris said, trying to sound positive.  Gerris always tried to sound positive.  He was a sweet boy. Nymeria thought vaguely. “You are a fine last of them to be, Princess.”

She reached over and rubbed his head the way that Elia used to rub hers.  “If one day they will sing songs of me, I might as well be all they say I will be,” she said.  “Let’s board and find this Abulu.”

*

“They’ve started calling it the Isle of Women,” Gerris said.  He wore a new tunic that was beaded and woven with feathers that he had acquired from his most recent trip with Ysil and Saria to Walano.  “For all the women here,” he added, in case Nymeria hadn’t understood why.

She felt her lips twist into a wry smile.  “Do we have many women?” she teased, and he flushed.

He was growing into a fine man.  She’d once thought he might be as tall as she—she wasn’t wrong.  He was taller than her now, and only fourteen.  He was handsome, too, and like the few other boys his age, Nymeria knew that the girls watched him like hawks, hoping he’d take one to wife. But he was still young, and as far as Nymeria could tell, showed no interest in being a father. _Let him be a boy forever,_ she thought, _let him know youth always._

His face was thin, and Nymeria chose to believe that it was because he was growing and all boys look stretched when they grow as quickly as Gerris.  It was easier to think that.

“And what does our fine prince of Walano say?” she asked him.  Gerris was quick to learn languages.  She’d noticed it on Naath, when he’d learned the peaceful tongue faster than any of the rest of them.  It was useful here, where Nymeria knew not a word of the Summer Tongue. She could speak Valyrian, and the different dialects of the Rhoyne, and could even read some of the Common Tongue of Westeros—when they chose to spell things consistently—but her ease with languages was not so great as Gerris’s. 

“Nothing,” Gerris said, and Nymeria raised her eyebrows.  “Well, he said some things, but they weren’t…helpful.”

She looked at Saria.

“Prince Jhaxaq had some suggestions.”  She knew from Saria’s tone exactly what his suggestions were. 

“That I sell some of my people to him that he may send them back across the sea to bondage in Valyria?” she said angrily.  Saria grimaced and Nymeria stared up at the ceiling. 

“Princess,” Druselka said quietly, “I see this as a sign.  No land holds us, and all lands would have us—”

“Sold to Valyria?” Nymeria demanded, her head snapping to look at Druselka.

“No, princess. Merely that all places would have us sold or dead.  Perhaps it is a sign from our Mother.  Perhaps we should return home.”

“Our home is gone,” Nymeria said through gritted teeth.  “Going home cannot recover the past.  Our cities will never be what they were.  You saw Chroyane.”

“A curse against Valyria, not against us.  The Mother would never curse us so.”

But Saria shook her head. “Do you think the Valyrians will take our return well?  Only slavery awaits, and I doubt it will be bondage served by the Rhoyne.  Not all mothers should be returned to.”

“Some mother birds will push a hatchling from the nest that she might learn to fly,” Elia pointed out. “So too must our Mother have done. Without her, we grow strong.”

“We were strong before, at her breast,” Druselka pointed out.

“And when we were defeated it was at her breast,” Nymeria pointed out.  “And those who defeated us salted our fields and destroyed our cities for spite.  Going back is death. I miss it as well, Druselka.”   She missed it wildly, the sounds of laughter and water bouncing off the stone streets of Ny Sar, her mother in her study, the gentle rustle of the river.  “But it is not my home any longer.  I have no home anymore.  Home is here, with my people.”

“Dragged from place to place in fear?” Druselka demanded.  Nymeria raised her eyebrows.  “The whole world is full of slavery.  Valyria saw to that. No place is free—not even here.” The words sting in their truth. When she’d been a girl, she’d heard that the Summer Isles knew no slavery. It was only now, being here, that she had learned that this had recently become a thing of the past.

“There’s Westeros,” Elia said, slowly.  “The dragons have not sailed so far yet, and slavery has always been an abomination there. Sacrificing men to their bloodthirsty trees—that’s well and good, but selling another into bondage…”

Nymeria chewed her lip, considering.  They were a far sail from Westeros—how many days at sea?  And that would only take them to the southernmost part, the desert part. Another uninhabitable place.

“Another place to go and stay only a little while before being forced to leave again?” demanded Druselka angrily.  “Your people want a place of peace, Princess.  They want to grow their families and plant their fields again.  They want home, not another adventure.”

 _So do I_ , Nymeria almost shouted, but she knew that would do no good.  She glared at Druselka instead. “We will stay here for a time,” she said slowly. She looked at Saria. “Organize as best you can food rationing.  Everyone shall have their fair share.  If we starve, we starve together and we starve _free_.” Saria looked as though she disagreed, but she bowed.

“And _if_ we starve?  _When_ we starve.” Druselka spat. “This earth is so barren that we—”

Nymeria cut her off. “A year.  For all our travels, we have been on the sea far more than we’ve been on land.  Let us be on land for a while. If the land cannot sustain, we leave in a year.  And we sail to Westeros.”

 

XX

They starved.

Nymeria watched as her people grew thin, watched as their faces grew haggard, as eyes grew fevered. She watched skiffs go out into the strait between the Isle of Women and Walano to come back with some fish, but not nearly enough.  She watched as farmers dug the thin soil, as children grew too tired to play, as people began to die, their bodies fading into skeletons.

Did she imagine it, or did they look at her differently?  She couldn’t imagine them looking at her with the same love that they’d shown in Zammetar.  They were too hungry for that, and when one is hungry, one does not look with love upon authority. At least, she thought bitterly, she was as thin as they were.

Chroya starved, and it was not long before she was coughing blood. 

“I’m amazed I wasn’t dying sooner,” she said when Nymeria wiped the blood away with a trembling hand. “I should have been. In Naath, or Zammetar or…” she coughed again, and there was more blood, and Nymeria felt her eyes prickle.

“Don’t say that,” she said fiercely.

Chroya gave her a wry smile.  “What else is there to say? It’s time I go. I’ve overstayed my welcome on this earth.”

“Never.”

But she was wrong. She held Chroya to her tightly, and did not let go, even after she’d stopped breathing.

 

XXI

She heard the drums, and she dreaded them.  Part of her wished to stay where she was, to let her people be and think as they would. They had that freedom, at least. But she knew it would be worse if she did not show her face, so she went. 

As she walked from her house to the shore, she saw some faces.  They were nervous.  Some looked away from her quickly, watched her with hungry eyes, and she was sure that those eyes continued to follow her as she made her way to the sea.

She found Druselka by the shore, with twenty drummers, her voice raised high above the beating as she sang a prayer that had gone unanswered for years now.  “Guide us, Mother!  Guide us!” the gathered Rhoynar cried as she chanted.  There were fewer of them than Nymeria had expected, but more than she would have liked.

“Mother!” Druselka called to the heavens, “I would hear your voice again!  We long for you!  We starve without you!  Mother!” The drums ceased, and a hush fell over the crowd and Druselka continued.  “These lands we have been to since we left you have been _cursed_.  Your blessing was left behind on the shores of our Rhoyne.  Are we so blind as not to see this?  Leaving her displeased her!  We have lost one prince, and now a princess, leaving only the one.”

 _The one you chose,_ Nymeria thought bitterly. Some eyes flicked towards her, and she did her best to keep her face as neutral as possible. They must not see bitterness there. They have the right to go where they will, and follow whom they choose.  And if they choose Druselka…

“She guides us as she can, but as she can leave little hope for home!  Little hope for peace of mind.  We starve, we die, we wither away, and for what?  She promises us home?  I say our home is with our Mother on the Rhyone!”

Some people made noises of ascent. 

“Brothers and sisters,” Druselka shouted even louder, and the drumming began again. “Will you come home with me? Our Mother calls to us! I hear her on the waves!”

There was a gasp of horror as they looked around, and Nymeria felt her back straighten. “Liar.”  Her voice rang like a bell, and she saw heads snap around to look at her.  “You lie, Druselka.”

“I do not,” she said.

“Why now? And why not these past years, then? Why you alone of our witches?” She remembered Druselka saying she’d felt the whisper of the Mother Rhoyne on the waves when they’d first left. Had she spread this lie the whole time, waiting for the right moment to gain power? 

“I am more powerful than they.  The Mother knows of my power, knows that across the many leagues from our home, I will hear her yearning.”

“Or you know that no one can prove you wrong,” Nymeria said.  She wished Serra were here.  Serra, she knew, would be able to disprove this.  She looked away from Druselka, turning away from her.  She called over her shoulder to the gathered crowd. “Slavery awaits you, mark my words. The Mother speaks no more loudly to Druselka than any of our other witches who have not heard her whisper in years. But believe what you will. Go with her if that is your heart’s desire.  I will not bind you to me. I never have, and I never will. Nor will I allow you to know anyone else’s bondage.  I never have. I never will.” She marched away, fuming. How many would go this time? How many would brave Westeros with her, even if they did not know what fresh horror awaited them there?

She walked along the shore, feeling the sand between her toes and wondering if any of Chroya’s ashes were still there.  She looked north, and even though she knew she would not see it for weeks, months perhaps, she imagined it rising from the sea, a green land with a small corner of unused land on which she and her people would finally know rest.

*

It was as they were loading the last of their ships that Nymeria heard shouts and, glancing over her shoulder, saw a single summer swanship laying anchor and a rowboat bringing someone to shore. 

She did not even bother commanding Ysil and Saria to follow her.  She knew they would come even without her bidding, and they did. She went down the shore, and stood, waiting until the boat was close enough to beach.  It was rowed by women, and there was a woman sitting in the front of the boat.  She leapt into the sea and splashed through the breaking tide, not caring if the salt water ruffled the feathers of her cloak.  Nymeria was surprised to see that this woman was as tall as she.  She did not bow in greeting to Nymeria, nor did Nymeria bow in greeting to her, but she did incline her head.

“I know you not,” she said in Valyrian.

“I would not expect it,” the woman replied, also in Valyrian, shrugging.  Nymeria was glad that they would not at least need a translator. She was fully on the beach now, and Nymeria saw scars curving along her arms and one that creeped up to her neck from her back.  Scars from a lash. “You are the Princess Nymeria?”

“I have that honor.”

“You are leaving?” the woman said, looking at the beach.

“Some of us,” Nymeria said. “Some of us have chosen to remain, though they are on the west side of the island.  Some already left.”

“You do not force them to go with you?”

“They follow if they choose.  They are not my slaves.”

The woman smiled and stepped past Nymeria, walking to the edge of the beach and a stretch of trees that cast shade onto the ground.  She threw herself onto the ground, and Nymeria followed suit.

“What is your name?” Nymeria asked her.

“Call me Xanda,” the woman said, her back against a tree. 

“Xanda,” Nymeria said, already feeling her mouth having trouble wrapping around the woman’s name.

“I had a house name once, but it was taken from me when Jhaxaq sold me.  I am just Xanda now.  Perhaps one day a Princess again, but for now, just Xanda.”

“You are a slave?” Nymeria asked, her eyes going from Xanda to the rowboat where her women were waiting, and then to the swanship in the bay.

“I escaped,” Xanda said shrugging.  “A thing you and I have in common, I think.  Escaping bondage.”

Nymeria raised her eyebrows.  “I was never enslaved. Nor my people.”

“A good princess, I think, then,” Xanda shrugged again.  Her casualness was odd, and it made Nymeria feel as though this woman were her equal somehow.  She’d not felt that in a long time.  _I must not let my guard down._

“Why have you come?” Nymeria asked her sharply. 

“You do not like my cousin Jhaxaq, as I understand,” Xanda said.

“I am not fond of him,” Nymeria said, carefully.  But she could see from Xanda’s eyes that Xanda knew the nature of that distaste.

“I am not fond of him either,” Xanda said.

_I should imagine not, if he sold you into slavery. What does this woman want?_

“I hear you defeated Valyria in war,” Xanda said, “That you fought off pirates of the Basilisk Isles, and that your warriors are strong women who cannot be bested.”

 _If that’s what you’ve heard of me, then perhaps I am doing a good job with all this after all,_ Nymeria thought.  It sounded nice, even if that wasn’t the whole truth of it.

“Perhaps,” she said.

“And now you are evading my questions,” Xanda said. 

“I do not know what it is you are asking,” Nymeria said.  If Xanda was going to be blunt, so too was she.  “We are leaving.  What do you want on the eve of our departure?  Why have you not come sooner?”

Xanda laughed, and in her laughter, Nymeria saw the similarity to Prince Jhaxaq. Their jaws were the same.

“I was a slave,” she said. “And then I was in hiding. I have long been curious about you, Princess who leads her people from slavery—who would sooner drag her people from place to place than see them enslaved.  Did you know my islands did not used to know slavery?”

“I did,” Nymeria said sadly.  “Another thing to blame the dragons for.”

“Or men like my cousin,” Xanda said.  “Who are greedy and weak and think not of lives but of gold.  I think he will be relieved you are leaving, Jhaxaq.”

“Relieved?” Nymeria asked sharply.

“Oh yes. You refuse to cooperate with him, and it makes him uneasy.  What,” and Xanda barked out a laugh, “if others notice that there exists a Princess who would sooner die than let her people know slavery?”

Nymeria had not thought of that.  It made her uneasy, if anything. The Summer Islanders weren’t her people, and though her heart broke for those who lost their freedom…there wasn’t anything she could do about it.  Nor, indeed had she done anything.  She was about to leave the islands forever. 

“Tell me,” Xanda said, leaning forward, “If there had been hope for the Rhoyne, would you have stayed? Would you have fought? Or would you still have left?”

Nymeria thought of Chroyane and its curse, of the river clogged with bodies, of fire raining down from above.  She shook her head. “There was no hope.”

“But if there had been?” Xanda asked, her eyes intent and Nymeria stared at her.

She wondered if there was anything left of Ny Sar.  She sat up a little straighter.  “With every bone in my body,” she said. 

Xanda smiled and got to her feet.  “That’s all I wanted to know.”

“What?” Nymeria asked sharply, springing up and following Xanda back down the beach.

“They will sing your song for years and years, until we are neither of us is human so much as the dust of bones.  But are you as great as they say you are?”

“I don’t—”

Xanda paused and glanced at Nymeria.  “When next you are in the Summer Isles, Princess, we will be free.  And I will have done it.  Whether you will it or not—whether I will it or not—they will compare us, my people.  I want to know if it’s a good comparison or not.”  Xanda smiled. “I think it will be.”

“But I haven’t done anything,” Nymeria yelped.

“No,” Xanda agreed. “Nor is it your battle. You are still fighting yours, I think,” she said, looking pointedly at the ships still at anchor. “But you don’t know what hope you can give to those who are enslaved—no matter where they are. They will want their own Princess Nymeria to lead them to safety.”

“And you will be that Princess Nymeria?” Nymeria demanded.

Xanda laughed. “No,” she said. “No, I will make them feel sad for your Rhoynar for having had to leave home.  They will sing of Xanda Qo until the day they die. Xanda will return them their freedom and they won’t have had to travel half the world for it.” She reached out and clasped Nymeria’s arm.  “I am glad, though. That you are enough of what they say you are.” 

And without another word, Xanda Qo waded into the sea and climbed into her rowboat.  Then, only as an afterthought, she called, “Tell those who remain here that if they want a truer friend than Jhaxaq, they can call upon the True Princess of the Lotus Vale.”


	5. Mors

XXI

“Well, I can’t say we’ve had desert before,” Elia said.  She sounded forcibly cheerful as they looked over the railing of the ship, waiting for one more rowboat to come and bring them to shore. 

“I like to provide diversity in my adventures,” Nymeria said dryly.  Already, her skin was cracking and they weren’t even on shore yet. She wondered if they had ointments, or if they’d have to make do with skin that burned and chafed. She wondered what these Westerosi did. They probably didn’t live here. At least she could say she found some abandoned corner in which to lick her wounds. 

When they landed ashore, the sand radiated heat up at them, and Nymeria looked up at the sun in the sky. _That will be more danger than any army_ , she thought vaguely, _if we don’t get water…_

“How’s the river?” she asked Gerris, who had hurried over.

“Thin,” he said. “But the water seems to be clean. There’s grass growing on the banks, but not much more than that.  There’s a grove of lemon trees on the other side of the river, but Ysil thinks we shouldn’t cross.”

“Why not?”

“There’s a castle next to it.”

She doubled her pace, climbing a dune and there, a mile or so away she could see the green lemon trees and the great stone castle.  Nymeria cursed under her breath.

“What do I do about that?” she muttered to herself, not really expecting an answer. She got several, though.

“Send an envoy?” suggested Elia at once.  “Let them know we mean no harm.”

“Hope they don’t notice the ten thousand ships on their river?” Saria japed and Elia threw her a glance.

“We might be able to take the castle,” Ysil said, coming over, “but I don’t think it would be worth the trouble.”

“Send a party to try and determine their numbers.”  She looked over her shoulder at her ships.  “We probably have more people, but if they have enough warriors to stamp us out…”

She looked at the river. Gerris’s assertion that it was thin was an accurate one.  There were also lots of reeds.  She frowned.

“That won’t sustain us,” she sighed.

“Hmmm,” Saria said slowly, looking at it too.  “It will depend on the soil, I think.”

“You think?” Nymeria hardly dared hope.

“Let’s go take a look,” Saria said, and she led them to the riverbank.  It was dotted with trees, and Saria ran her hands over their bark, investigated their roots and even brought the dirt to her lips a few times to taste it.  Then she smiled at Nymeria.  “Nothing to do but try,” she said.

Nymeria looked back at the castle and its lemon grove.  “Ysil,” she said, “Send ten to the castle.  We mean no harm.”

“You’re sure?” Ysil asked.

“No. But they’ll attack us before we attack them, that’s for certain.  This is their land.”

*

The castle was, aptly, called Lemonwood, and Lord Lemonwood did not take kindly to Nymeria’s presence on his river.  More than once he sent riders at them, which Nymeria’s remaining myrmidons fought off as best they could, though blood spilled in the sand. 

Nymeria posted scouts along the river.  There would always be eyes on Lemonwood, she commanded, and her people complied readily.

Saria divided people into tasks, and before long, ditches were being dug from the river out onto the banks, and Saria was carefully planting what remaining seed they had from the Summer Isles and Naath.  They put dried grass over the dirt to keep it from growing too hot, and Saria ran little trenches of water through each field. 

“You put our water witches to shame,” Nymeria whispered to her when she saw the first bit of green pressing through the dried grass.

Saria shrugged. “They look for the current too much, and don’t notice all the other things water can do.” She smiled.  “It’s not because of our water witches that the Rhoyne was once great,” she said, adding quickly, “though they helped.  It’s everyone else who knew what to do with the water.”

Nymeria squeezed the girl’s shoulder.  “Sometimes I marvel that I found you in a back alley,” she joked.

“Lucky you,” Saria said. “I’d probably be here,” she gestured to the desert, “with you anyway, but who knows.  Maybe I’d have died in Naath.”  She shrugged again.  “You know, I have a good feeling about this place.  This is the easiest crop we’ve grown, and that’s including Zammetar.”

“Truly?” Nymeria didn’t bother trying to keep the shock out of her voice.

“Well, I shouldn’t say that before we’ve reaped.  But it’s not so bad here.  Though a bit dry.”

“Not so bad,” Nymeria sighed and she looked back at Lemonwood.  She was always looking at Lemonwood.  For the first time, she understood why it was that the Valyrians had just ended up attacking.  Lord Lemonwood annoyed her enough that she wanted his castle almost entirely out of spite. But the Rhoynar had treated the Valyrians better than Lemonwood treated them.

*

“Riders!” Nymeria’s head jerked around and she squinted into the sands.  She could not see riders, but that didn’t mean they were not approaching.  If she’d learned one thing from the red sands, it was that the heat of the day could create sights—and hide them as well.  Twice since Saria’s fields had really started to grow, riders from Lemonwood had attacked, seeking to drive her and hers into the sea.  They had failed—and of that, Nymeria had been grateful. There hadn’t been enough of them to take all of her people, though after two sorties, she did not much fancy another.

“From the north, Princess,” Ysil said, tapping her shoulder, and she frowned.

Had the Lord of Lemonwood summoned a friend to help roust them?  From his first emissary, she had rather thought that the Dornish were like the Rhoyne of old—each their own, and perhaps allied, but with no stronger ties to one another than the deserts they lived on.

They had survived two attacks from the south, when they’d had the river at their back. She did not think they could take an attack from both sides, whatever the numbers may be.  _And they do not know how few of us are warriors_ , she thought.  Few, but enough.  Enough to keep them safe for a time, but would it always be so?  It was hard to say—especially if the Dornish kept attacking them.

She rested her hand on her sword and marched towards the sand.  Hers would be the first that this band of Dornish would see.

There were only ten of them riding to her, wrapped in cloth to keep the sun from their skin, and when their leader dismounted, he removed the wrapping from his face that she could see him.  He was shorter than her, with eyes like olives and lips that were surprisingly full, for all they were chapped. 

“Princess Nymeria, I take it?” he said slowly, glancing over her shoulders.  She was sure that Ysil stood at her back, and would not have been surprised if Saria and Gerris were not far off.  He held out a hand and Nymeria reached out to shake it. He smiled.  It was not an unfriendly smile.  “Mors Martell,” he said, “Lord of the Sandship and the Broken Arm.”

“My Lord,” she said. She wished her voice did not carry an accent.  Gerris’s did not when he spoke this Common Tongue.  At least she could speak it—if poorly.

“Is there a place we can sit and talk?” he asked.  His voice was light, almost genial.  _He is a friend of the Lord of Lemonwood, come to distract me while another attack is launched,_ she thought. 

“By the banks of the river,” she said.  “Lemonwood is lovely to look upon.”  There at least she could see any attack if it were to come.

Mors Martell smiled. “Indeed.  I have ridden it often.”  He turned to look at his riders.  “And the—ah. Yes.  Good.”  One of them had produced a bottle and another a basket full of fruit.  He offered his arm to her by the elbow.  She stared at it, then looked at him.  “Or perhaps not,” he muttered to himself. He let his arm fall, but did not seem to take it as a slight. 

Nymeria led him to the river, and they sat down beneath a grove of trees.  Nymeria kicked off her shoes and let her feet dip into the river. “You are river folk,” Mors Martell observed.  “Is that why you landed here?”

“After so long at sea, we would have landed anywhere.  We saw the river among the sands and chose to land on its shores,” she said. “I marvel that you Dornish do not all live along the river.”

Mors Martell’s smile was tight.  “The Greenblood is a good little thing, but we would drink her dry, I fear.  We are not famed for our agriculture here in Dorne.”

“What are you famed for?” she asked.  “Your sands?”

“Horses,” he said lightly. “Our sandsteeds are enough to make any knight in Westeros salivate.  And there’s gold in the mountains.  Olives grow here and there,” he shrugged.  “It is no place of luxury, but there is goodness here.”

She looked at him sharply. “Speak plainly,” she said. “I have come too far to—”

“Princess, I am merely making conversation,” Mors Martell said, and she could see from his eyes that he was surprised at her.  “I meant nothing more than to introduce you to this place you seem to wish to make your new home.”

“Introduce me?” she asked, feeling her eyebrows rise.  “Is that a kind word for throw me into the sea?”

“I brought nine men with me.  I doubt I’d get very far. Besides…you’re taller than me. I may be a puissant warrior, but I don’t think the fight would be an easy one.”

“So you’d run from the fight?”

“You did,” he pointed out, his voice evenly, “When you fled the Rhoyne.”

 _And Zammetar, and Naath, and even the Summer Isles_. But she did not say that. To even think on it made her feel one hundred years old.  _And I am not yet twenty two,_ she sighed. She wondered how old Lord Mors was. He did not seem too much older than her, but she could not tell at all.

“I could not win the fight,” she said.  “I did not relish the thought of my people’s blood in the river more than it already was.”

“And I do not relish the thought of my people’s blood in the sand.  Or your people’s blood, for that matter.”

“Or my people’s blood? That I do not believe.” She looked pointedly across the river at Lemonwood.

“Ah,” he said. “You mistake me for my cousin of Lemonwood, I see.”

“Your cousin?” she asked sharply.  So he was Lord Lemonwood’s blood.

“Well…distant cousin. His grandfather was my great-grandmother’s younger brother.  He wed her to my great-grandfather of Martell and thus did I come to exist. Lord Andrey would have lived regardless, I imagine, though my mother likes—liked to point out that clearly House Martell got the better end of that pact.”

She frowned. “Liked?”

His easy smile tightened and his eyes grew sad for a time.  “My Lady Mother Mariah Jordayne died six weeks ago,” he said.

“Mariah?” He frowned at her question. “My mother’s name was Meria,” she explained.  When she said it, she felt stupid.  With her accent, the two names sounded the same.  To him, undoubtedly, they were different.

Mors Martell had a remarkably expressive face, Nymeria realized.  She saw it from the way his mouth softened again, and his olive eyes seemed to grow dull as he realized that his own pain at losing his mother was not one that was alien to Nymeria.  “How did she die?” he asked her.  “Did the dragons…”

“A flux,” she said quickly. “She died in her bed while her city still thrived.”

“A good way to go,” he said quietly.  Nymeria nodded.

“And yours?”

He swallowed, and shook his head, and Nymeria did not press him.

Perhaps she should not have brought it up.  If he’d seemed light-hearted and warm before, his sadness seemed to stretch between them like some sort of sludge.  Nymeria looked back out at the river, feeling the flow of water between her toes.

“When I was a girl, I used to swim in the Rhoyne every day to learn her magic,” she said.

“Were you any good at it?”

“Swimming or magic?”

“Both. Either.”

“I am a strong swimmer. There are better magicians than me.”

“Can you perform spells out of the Greenblood?” he asked.  “Is that how you came to have fields that bear crops?”  Nymeria shook her head.

“Only the Mother Rhoyne has magic.”

“That is unfortunate,” he said.  “Although, I suppose it is also fortunate.  If the Kings of Starfall could draw magic from the Torrentine we’d all be the worse for it. And that’s if the Kings Gardener did not draw power from the Mander or…” he shuddered.  “It is best to keep the water where it is, I think.”

“Unless you divert it for growing,” she said.

“A magic of its own, I suppose,” he said slowly.  She turned to look at him.  He was watching her—not observing her the way the King of Walano had, or the way King Marselen had—truly watching her.  His gaze reminded her almost of Chroya.  She looked away, biting her lip.

“What do you intend to do here?” he asked her at last.  “To stay on the Greenblood with your people?  To sail north or out into the Sunset Sea?”

Nymeria grimaced, and he read her grimace like a book.  “I promise you, my Lemonwood cousin won’t like you on his doorstep. He will fight you.”

“He has already done so,” Nymeria said sadly.  

Mors Martell looked unsurprised.  “He’ll bring friends to help him.  Already he has sent the hew and cry out, demanding help to throw you from his lands—or at least your people.  You he’d have chained and naked and left for the sun to burn away.”

“I had suspected,” Nymeria said pointedly, and Mors smiled.  He had a nice smile. She shouldn’t trust him—for all she knew he would try and kill her right now.  But he did seem not to wish her harm.

“You don’t fear him?”

“No,” she said.

“That seems unwise,” he pointed out.

“He does not have the numbers to defeat me, and you have yet to make your point, so I do not need to be afraid just yet.”  He smirked at her.

“You are quick.”

“I seem to recall asking you to make your point a while ago,” she said, and his smile widened.  

“Very well,” he said. “I shall make my point. I would have you as my wife. Your people could live on my lands in peace until the day they die.  No more wandering the world.”

Nymeria laughed. “Marry you?  I’ve only just met you, my lord.”

“True,” he said, “But you like me.”

She wished she didn’t, but she imagined him naked just then, standing beneath the stars while the waves of the sea washed over his ankles.  It was oddly jarring.  She’d spent so long a time in Chroya’s arms, and there had been so few men with her besides Ysil who was more a brother than anything else, that she simply hadn’t felt the urge to. But it was not an unpleasing image, and she felt heat creeping up her cheeks.  “I don’t see why that would make a good marriage.”

“Because if you stay here unwelcome, you’ll have all the swords of Dorne down your throat soon enough.  Because anywhere you go you will have either to fight for your place, or take such a pitiful spit of land that no one would even wish to remain.”  She thought of the Isle of Women, and suddenly wondered just how much Lord Mors knew.  “Because you left your home, and I think you may be tired of looking for a new one. How old are you, Princess?”

“One and twenty.”

“And how long have you been sailing?”

She glared at him and he sighed.  “Which is why I ask you, what is your plan?  Or have you been sailing around aimlessly, hoping to stumble upon somewhere undiscovered? I can give you peace.”

“And what do you gain from all this?” she demanded.

“A comely bride,” he said quickly, and she rolled her eyes.

“I am a Princess, not a girl.  I know how the world works. What is it you want of my people?”

“You’re clever,” he repeated.

“I know this,” she said.

“How many thousands do you command?” he asked.  She stiffened, and looked at him sharply.  “They sing of ten thousand ships that you set sail with.  How many men, women, and children?”

“It’s not quite ten thousand,” Nymeria said.

“Well, eight thousand forty seven is hard to rhyme and we all know how singers are about their rhymes,” he said dryly.  “It doesn’t matter how many ships.  Or, indeed, how many you rule.  I rule two thousand. If I’m being generous with the count. The Kings in the west of Dorne rule twice as many, if not thrice as many.  And you—you rule ten times that amount.  What do I gain?  If we marry, I no longer have to worry about my cousin of Lemonwood,” he pointed across the river, “and how he sometimes feels as though my great-grandmother’s dowry was too great. Indeed, I could take this river from him and give it to you and your people as a wedding present.”

Nymeria laughed. “You mean if we were to wed, _I_ would take this river from him and give it to myself and my people on your behalf as a wedding present.”

He considered a moment. “Yes.”

Nymeria leaned back, looking at him through narrowed eyes.  She weighed his words carefully.  His domain was small, and could well not sustain her people.  If they did take the river from Lord Lemonwood, what would happen then? Would her Rhoynar sail up and down the Greenblood as they once had the Mother Rhoyne?  Would they truly even be safe?  He had mentioned some kings, and friends of Lord Lemonwood. Nymeria doubted very much they’d take kindly to Lord Martell’s sudden growth. 

 _But he takes his land and makes it yours,_ she thought. _There would be reason to fight, then._

Would that make her people no better than the dragonlords they’d fled?  Arriving intending peace, but slowly routing the ways of those who had been there before? 

“And you with your suddenly swollen host,” she said slowly.  “What will you do with them?  Fight your kings in the west?  Make yourself the sole king of Dorne?”

“I’m only a lord,” he said simply.  “And my house has never been in line for any of the crowns in the mountains.”

“Yet you see me as an opportunity.  What for? Conquest?”

He watched her carefully as he spoke.  “Growth,” he said. “I have heard tell of the glorious skills of your people—stonework, metalwork, carving and crafts. You even said that your people had diverted the river for growth.  I do not know how you managed it, for the Dornish have tried for centuries to no avail, but if that is possible, then you bring life to these sands.”

“And you would have dominion,” she snapped.  “Do you take me for some Westerosi lady who will give you all as dowry like your great-grandmother? I was raised to rule, my lord, and a greater city than any you will find in these lands.  I am the Princess of Ny Sar, lady of the River and Fountains, a warrior of the seas.”

He ran a hand through his hair, then interrupted her.  “Only a fool would say that I should rule in your stead,” he said.  “Perhaps my cousin of Lemonwood would want that. I wouldn’t dare ask it of you.

“You can bring growth to the desert, make us bloom like a flower at an oasis.”

“So you would have me.”

“Only if you would have me,” he said. 

“And if I say no, will you summon your host to throw me into the sea?  Chain me naked for the sun?”

His lips quirked in a smile and Nymeria felt her eyes widen.  Mors Martell’s face changed to horror.  “I did not mean that!” he yelped.  “Merely…” he was blushing.  Furiously.

“Merely what?” she barked. She twisted around, pulling her feet from the water and glaring at him.

“My house’s sigil is the sun,” he mumbled.  “I had an uncouth thought.”

Nymeria blinked. She remembered learning as a girl how these Westerosi took their sigils very seriously.  “Oh.”

He did not break eye contact with her at all—that she would give him credit for. Was he imagining her chained and naked before the sun…or merely naked and…well she had thought of him naked by the sea. She did not wish to think of this now.

“If you say no,” he said, “I will return to the Sandship.  If you make war on me, I would fight back.”

“But would you come to your cousin’s call?”

Mors Martell smiled wryly. “I don’t know.”

“And if I say yes, you would use my people as an instrument of war, to make Dorne yours as you envision its future?” she demanded.

His eyes were steady, and she did not doubt for a second the words that fell from his lips next. “Ours.  I would make Dorne ours.  I—we would make it so your people never had to find another home ever again.”

Nymeria watched him, and he watched her.  “You’ve given me much to consider,” she said, and he inclined his head.

“And we haven’t even had the wine yet,” he said, reaching for the bottle.  “Drink with me?”

She nodded, and he poured her a glass.  The wine was a deep red, like blood.

*

Mors Martell returned two weeks later with more wine and fruit and once again, they sat by the river and looked at Lemonwood.

“It is a nice castle,” he said.  “I think it a little less ugly than mine own, in truth, but to say so openly would bring shame upon my forebears of Martell.  I do hope you’ll keep my secret.”

“Can’t you make the castle prettier?” Nymeria asked him.

“It would not be hard, I suppose.  It’s a bland thing.  Add a tall tower to it, maybe some carvings along the curtain walls…but I haven’t the gold for it, alas.  I’m but a poor Dornish lordling, who dreams of beauty.”  He gave her a look out of the corner of his eyes, and Nymeria rolled her eyes at him

“Charming,” she said, biting back a laugh.

“Have you ever been wooed, Princess?” he asked her.

“No,” she said simply. 

“A tragedy.”

“Have you wooed many?”

He smiled wryly.  “A few in my time.”

“You’re hardly old.”

He was surprisingly easy to talk to.  She suspected that he intended to be.  But it was odd for her.  She could give him no command—he was not one of her men. Nor was he Elia, who was her elder and who had raised her.  He was not Chroya—equal in name, but who chose to council rather than to lead.  He was entirely his own man. 

“Getting older every day, and still unwed,” he said, and he gave her another purposeful look.  Nymeria held out her glass and he poured wine into it.

“I have been thinking over your proposal,” she said as he poured.

“And?” he asked.

“How can I justify sending my people to war in your sands?  I am not of Dorne.  Does that not make me as bad as the Valyrians I led my people away from?  New and assuming I have a right to rule those who are here?”

Mors lifted the bottle and the stream of wine stopped flowing.  He then poured himself a glass of wine and corked the bottle, settling it on the ground beneath the tree. 

“A fine question,” he said slowly.

“A vital one,” Nymeria added, keeping a subtle steel beneath her light tone.  This was the question that kept her up at nights, when she mulled over Mors’ words, the idea of marrying him.  There was something about him that she knew was different from Prince Jhaxaq.  She knew he would not sell her people into slavery, for one.

Mors nodded slowly, considering, sipping his wine.  His eyes drifted to Lemonwood, then he cocked his head slightly, then he looked back at Nymeria.

“Tell me,” he said.  “Let us say that Valyria had been more cunning.  That they had married a freeholder to some fine Princess of…Sar Mell, say.”  How long had it been since Nymeria had thought of Sar Mell.   _It’s in the past._ “Let us say that instead of seeking to conquer from without, they led the Sar Mell to conquer each city in turn until they ruled truly.  What would you say?”

“That they had no right to do so.  That thus was not the way of the Rhoyne.”

Mors nodded.  “If our people become one, will they be Rhoynar still?  In name perhaps, but won’t they become Dornish?  Not entirely.  But enough?”

Nymeria wasn’t sure what she thought of that, but Mors pressed on.

“Here is why you are different from Valyria,” he said.  “The Rhoynar were independent of one another.  There were spats, but never the attempt to steal one another’s sovereignty outright, am I correct?”

“You are,” she said, and he smiled.

“And here I was, nervous that my maester had failed me in his teachings and I was about to show it.  Good.  Now, Westeros is not the Rhoyne.”

“I’d noticed that,” Nymeria said, running her hands over the dry grass.

“Nor are her people Rhoynar,” Mors continued.  “Furthermore, I would say you could safely argue that it is within the Westerosi tradition, if you will, for outsiders to come in and conquer and rule.  For kings to claim the lands of others, and make that land their own.  Look at the kings of Starfall.  Theirs is the blood of the First of Men.  They took their land from the children of the forest and have held it ever since.  But look to the north.  The Lords of the Vale are Arryns— _Andals_.  They took the Vale from the First of Men.  Not without continued strife, but they did so.  The storm lords and the ironborn and the Northmen and the westerlanders war over who shall rule the riverlands, who shall claim dominance.  I imagine that if Valyria were to show up on our doorsteps, they would fight and for all they are a new face, how different, truly, are they from the Andals and the First of Men who came here and took what they wanted?”

“That’s quite the argument.   I’m not sure what I think of your logic,” Nymeria said.

“Well, I am not yet finished, so I shall ask you to withhold your judgement,” Mors said, waggling a finger at her as if she were a child, and she heard herself giggling despite herself.  When was the last time anyone had been playful with her?  When was the last time anyone had been anything but deferent?   _This is what I wanted from Chroya_ , Nymeria thought guiltily.   _But I must not let that feeling get away from me.  He must answer my question._

“If your intent were to conquer all of Dorne and rule her as your empire, I’d probably join my cousin of Lemonwood in trying to throw you into the sea, no matter how comely I find you.”  Nymeria resisted rolling her eyes.  “But I do not think that is what you would want.  If you were to conquer Dorne, you would rule as her Princess, but the Dornish would become your people—as, I believe I heard, the Ar Noy and the Ghoyan Drohe,” she did her best not to flinch at his pronunciation of the latter, “became your people and the Rhoynar became one.  Why not the Dornish and the Rhoynar, then?  In short, you would be different from Valyria and your Mother Rhoyne because you are not Valyria.  Your intent is not Valyrian, your motivation is not Valyrian.  You wish to make a home for all, not just a place for your people to expand into and slowly take over.  It would not be a conquest in truth.  It would be a rebuilding.”

He was watching her with those olive eyes, and she took a sip of wine, thinking.

“I have failed,” he said.  “I have driven you away from me, haven’t I?  My cause is lost.”

“You have a way with words,” Nymeria said simply.

“A good way, or a bad way?”

Nymeria smiled at him coyly, tempted to make him squirm for a few minutes.  It could prove entertaining, and it had been a good long while since she’d felt as though doing such would have no ramifications.  She could.

“An unexpected way,” she said simply.  “I do not yet know what I think, but I am not unconvinced.”

“And not convinced?”

She thought for a moment.  He was right—she would not seek to crush the Dornish.  Just to make them hers.  But could they ever be?   _With Mors at my side, perhaps…and once they know me, perhaps…_

It still did not sit well.

She wasn’t sure if anything would ever sit well.

_Nymeria’s ten thousand ships came to Dorne, and she was offered all of Dorne on a plate to make what she would, and she refused._

_Nymeria’s ten thousand ships came to Dorne, and she took it and made it bloom like a flower in the desert, ending the strife of the region and making it the most puissant corner of all of Westeros._

_You are tired of running._ That voice was Chroya’s.  Or her mother’s.  She wasn’t sure.

“Do you have allies who aren’t me?” she asked him, and he smiled at her, knowing what came next.

*

“So you will wed him?” Elia asked her as they sat together by the banks of the Greenblood. Yandry was crawling along the banks, and Lhoral was scampering about, chasing butterflies. _At least these ones are not poisonous,_ Nymeria thought, laughing at the sight of her niece running and playing.  _And mayhaps she’ll have a cousin to play with soon as well as a brother._ The thought set her stomach into knots.  She and Mors should not have a child—not immediately, not while battles needed to be fought and she needed to lead her people in war.

“Yes,” she says simply.

“You think it a good alliance?” Elia asked, curiously, and Nymeria looked at her over her shoulder. For the first time since she’d spoken to Mors, she realized that she had spoken neither to Saria nor Ysil on it. And she definitely had not brought it up to Elia.  The thought made her frown. She did not like not relying upon her sister.

“I think so. He is intelligent and I think honorable, in his own way.  He certainly means for our people to have a home in these lands.  And Saria says that the earth is not so hard to work as it could be…”

“You speak of him—not of _it_ ”

“I don’t—”

“This alliance—will it benefit us?  Will it be strong?”

“Yes,” Nymeria says. Of that she’s sure. Mors is a careful thinker, as detailed and meticulous as anyone she’s ever met. 

“And it will be sealed by your marriage?” Elia took her hand and squeezed it.

“Mine and others,” Nymeria said, shrugging.  She did not mind the idea of marrying Mors Martell in truth.  It would take time getting used to—and his gaze when their conversation diverted away from their plans—but it was not as it would have been marrying Prince Jhaxaq. 

“Others?” Elia asked. “Our women to his men, I assume.”

“Yes,” Nymeria said. “You must marry Ser Devan Dalt when we take Lemonwood.”

Elia didn’t say a word, and Nymeria looked over at her.  Her sister’s face was a mask.

“Must?”

“Yes,” Nymeria said.

“Have I no say in this?”

“You know that’s not what I mean by it, Elia,” Nymeria said, feeling suddenly tired. Surely Elia must understand that she wouldn’t wish her an ill marriage.  She’d spoken to Ser Devan before, and he seemed a fine man.  Besides, surely her sister was lonely and—

“So I’m some slave to command into bed with some Westerosi knight?” Elia snapped.

“You are no slave,” Nymeria flared, glaring at her sister.  “You know that’s not what this is.”

“What is it then? You sell my life to this stranger for what?”

“I do not sell you. I—”

“Command that I wed.”

“For the Rhoynar. For our people.”

“And lose all semblance of freedom.”

“Some freedoms are more important than others.  I would have thought you’d learned that,” Nymeria said, bitterly.  “I will give you a castle to share with him. Lemonwood.  You’ll live by the river and your children will be—”

“I will not wed a stranger,” Elia snapped.  “I will not have my children have any father but their own.”  _As you had a mother who was not yours_ , Nymeria thought sadly.  “Give this castle to someone else.”

“I want _you_ to have it,” Nymeria said quietly. “I want you to have all you want.”

“And what if what I want is to sail the river for the rest of my days, mourning my mother and singing the songs I learned at her breast?” Elia shouted, and there were tears in her eyes.  “You cannot make me do this, Nymeria.”

Nymeria stared at Elia, and felt her heart break into pieces.  She wanted to hug her sister, to hold her close, to feel her sister rubbing her hand through her hair and hear her calling her little sister, telling her she would be all right, that all would be well, that they would find some solution.

But she wasn’t a little sister.  She was a Princess. The last Rhoynish Princess, and her sister was not someone who could bend her will as she pleased. Gone were the days when Elia was a second mother to her.

“Then go,” Nymeria said, her voice dead even to her own ears.  “Sail the Greenblood, then.”

She looked back across the river at Lemonwood, and heard Elia gathering her children and leaving Nymeria alone by the banks of the river.

When she was gone, Nymeria reached up and ran her hands through her hair, knotting her fingers between strands and tugging until it hurt and she could let tears fall at last.

*

“I had hoped to give him Lemonwood,” Mors said quietly, looking past Nymeria to Ser Devan. Ser Devan was a tall man, though not so tall as Nymeria.  She thought absentmindedly that she should stop comparing men to her height. They would always be shorter than her, wouldn’t they?  But she did not know if she could end the habit.

“I know,” Nymeria replied. She didn’t follow his gaze. She knew that Ser Devan was watching them, and knew also that her own were too—Ysil and Saria and little Gerris. _Where once there was Chroya and Serra and Drohe Nysar and Druselka. And Elia._ She had not seen her sister since their fight by the river. Elia had taken ten river boats and some friends and poled them together on the water.  Each night, she heard them singing.

Mors placed a hand at the small of her back.  He was always doing that—ever since she’d agreed to wed him, since she’d taken Lemonwood. Whenever he did, her stomach seemed to swoop as though she were a girl who knew nothing of love.

“I suppose I’ll have to—” Mors began, but Nymeria shook her head and he let his words trail off. He did that sometimes, she had noticed.  He liked implying, letting people guess and follow through. Nymeria preferred complete clarity. Or perhaps he was seeking to spare Ser Devan’s feelings.

“Saria,” Nymeria called and Saria stepped forward.  If she noticed Mors’ hand at Nymeria’s back, she did not care.  “Ser Devan Dalt, I present you with Saria, who has helped channel the water, and make the banks north of the river bloom.”

Ser Devan bowed to her. “My lady,” he said.

“I’m not lady,” Saria said and there was mirth in her voice.  “I’m a scullion.”

“She’s my advisor,” Nymeria hastened to correct, glaring at Saria.  “And Lady of Lemonwood.”  Saria’s jaw dropped and Nymeria enjoyed a moment of amusement.  It was a rare day when she could catch Saria off guard. But Ser Devan didn’t seem to have heard. He was staring at Saria carefully, and Saria, ever quick, ever aware, narrowed her eyes at Nymeria, thinking very, very quickly.

“Will you have a landless knight, my lady scullion?”  Mors laughed, and Nymeria pinched him.  He pinched her right back and she felt the jolt of it run through her body.

“Marrying me for my wealth. I see how it is,” Saria said with a mock prim tone that sounded remarkably like Serra’s, placing her hands on her hips. Ser Devan blushed. Saria looked at him carefully, her eyes sweeping up and down his body.  “Yes, I think I’ll have you,” she said.  “But only because you know I was a scullion and don’t care.”

“It’s a clever woman who can rise so high,” he said, sounding modest. 

“Yes,” Saria said, looking at Nymeria with triumph.  “It is.”

 

XXII

On most nights, Dorne was cold.  It was something that had confused Nymeria when she had first arrived—how could a place so blisteringly hot during the day be so frigid as soon as the sun went down. But it was.

Not this night, though. On this night, the fires burned so bright that even the stars overhead did not shine. On this night, the sea breeze, usually warm on her skin when it drifted in through her window, cooled. On this night, Nymeria’s fleet of eight thousand, five hundred and seven ships burned to ash and coal. Gone were the remnants of her home, the proud arched bows of seafaring ships that had been crafted from the wood of Sothoryos, the colorful sails they had bought on the Summer Isles, the carved turtle prows of the river vessels that had once sailed down the Rhoyne to end the days of dragons.  Gone forever, but how brightly they burned.

Mors stood at her back, a hand resting on her hip, almost lazily.  He watched the ships burn as well, she knew, but she did not look at him. She was not ready to see the look in his face, the ferocity, the gleam of excitement.  _With the burning of my ships, House Martell will rise like the sun at dawn_ , she thought. _House Nymeros Martell…_ That had been Mors’ idea, to make her name one with his.  But though she tried, she could not help but feel as though the sun was setting for her Rhoynar. How many had turned back because they had wanted freedom to choose, and now she did not let them. _They can always build ships again_ , she thought desperately, but they would not.  She knew that. Those who were truly angry with her would be like Elia.  They would build riverboats and sail up and down the Greenblood as they had done on the Mother Rhoyne. But it would not be the same. It would never be the same. Nothing could compare to the rolling green hills of the Rhoyne, the cool breezes, and summer cicadas. There would be no fountains here, no festival city so great that it could be seen for miles and miles and its spires looked like a crown. 

Mors’ Sandship was positively bland in comparison.

She’d have to have some of her stonemasons work on it.  It was no palace that befit her or her new husband, it was a block. Mayhaps they could make it look like Ny Sar…

But no.

Ny Sar was gone. The dragons would have destroyed it in their wroth at her escape.  For all she knew they had diverted the Rhoyne and the Noyne and her city did not stand athwart the water anymore.  Nor did she. Only the sands remained her. The sands and the sun.

She turned at last to Mors. He looked up at her through hooded eyes, and his lips quirked in a smile and he took her hand. “Are you ready, wife?” he asked her.

She could taste smoke in the air, smoke like Selhorys and Valysar and Volon Therys. _There are no dragons to defeat me here_ , she thought.

She kissed him, and smiled, and led him from the bonfires to bed.


End file.
